.BRARY 

juivsRsrrr  OF 

CALIFORNIA 
SAN  DIEGO 


ROADS  FROM  ROME 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK    •  BOSTON   •    CHICAGO    •   DALLAS 
ATLANTA   •   SAN  FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LIMITED 

LONDON   •   BOMBAY    •  CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  LTD. 

TORONTO 


\ 


ROADS   FROM    ROME 


BY 
ANNE  C.  E.  ALLINSON 

AUTHOR  WITH  FRANCIS  G.   ALLINSON  OF   "  GREEK  LANDS 
AND  LETTERS  " 


THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 
1913 

All  rights  reserved 


COPVRIGHT,    1909,    1910,    1913, 

BY   THE   ATLANTIC   MONTHLY  COMPANY. 


COPYRIGHT,  1913, 
BY  THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published  September,  1913. 


Three  of  the  papers  in  this  volume  have  already  appeared  in 
The  Atlantic  Monthly:  "A  Poet's  Toll,"  "The  Phrase- 
Maker,"  and  "A  Roman  Citizen."  The  author  is  indebted  to 
the  Editors  for  permission  to  republish  them.  The  illustration 
on  the  title  page  is  reproduced  from  the  poster  of  the  Roman 
Exposition  of  1911,  drawn  by  Duilio  Cambeliotti,  printed  by 
Dr.  E.  Chappuis. 


PATRI  MEO 
LUCILIO  A.  EMERY 

JUSTITIAE  DISCIPULO,  LEGIS  MAGISTRO, 
LITTERARUM  HUMANARUM  AMICO 


PREFACE 

HE  main  purpose  of  these  Roman 
sketches  is  to  show  that  the  men  and 
women  of  ancient  Rome  were  like 
ourselves. 

"Born  into  life! — 'tis  we, 
And  not  the  world,  are  new; 
Our  cry  for  bliss,  our  plea, 
Others  have  urged  it  too — 
Our  wants  have  all  been  felt,  our  errors  made  before." 

It  is  only  when  we  perceive  in  "classical  anti- 
quity" a  human  nature  similar  to  our  own  in 
its  mingling  of  weakness  and  strength,  vice  and 
virtue,  sorrow  and  joy,  defeats  and  victories 
that  we  shall  find  in  its  noblest  literature  an 
intimate  rather  than  a  formal  inspiration,  and  in 
its  history  either  comfort  or  warning. 

A  secondary  purpose  is  to  suggest  Roman  con- 
ditions as  they  may  have  affected  or  appeared  to 
men  of  letters  in  successive  epochs,  from  the  last 


viii  Preface 

years  of  the  Republic  to  the  Antonine  period. 
Three  of  the  six  sketches  are  concerned  with  the 
long  and  brilliant  "Age  of  Augustus."  One  is 
laid  in  the  years  immediately  preceding  the 
death  of  Julius  Caesar,  and  one  in  the  time  of 
Trajan  and  Pliny.  The  last  sketch  deals  with 
the  period  when  Hadrian  attempted  a  renais- 
sance of  Greek  art  in  Athens  and  creative  Roman 
literature  had  come  to  an  end.  Its  renaissance 
was  to  be  Italian  in  a  new  world. 

In  all  the  sketches  the  essential  facts  are  drawn 
directly  from  the  writings  of  the  men  who  appear 
in  them.  These  facts  have  been  merely  cast  into 
an  imaginative  form  which,  it  is  hoped,  may  help 
rather  to  reveal  than  cloak  their  significance  for 
those  who  believe  that  the  roads  from  Rome 
lead  into  the  highway  of  human  life. 

In  choosing  between  ancient  and  modern 
proper  names  I  have  thought  it  best  in  each  case 
to  decide  which  would  give  the  keener  impression 
of  verisimilitude.  Consistency  has,  therefore, 
been  abandoned.  Horace,  Virgil  and  Ovid  exist 
side  by  side  with  such  original  Latin  names  as 
Julius  Paulus.  While  Como  has  been  preferred 


Preface  ix 

to  Comum,  the  "Lacrian  Lake"  has  been  re- 
tained. Perugia  (instead  of  Perusia)  and  Assisi 
(instead  of  Assisium)  have  been  used  in  one 
sketch  and  Laurentum,  Tusculum  and  Tibur  in 
another.  The  modern  name  that  least  suggests 
its  original  is  that  of  the  river  Adige.  The  Latin 
Atesia  would  destroy  the  reader's  sense  of  famil- 
iarity with  Verona. 

My  thanks  are  due  to  Professor  M.  S.  Slaugh- 
ter, of  the  University  of  Wisconsin,  who  has  had 
the  great  kindness  to  read  this  book  in  manu- 
script. My  husband,  Francis  G.  Allinson,  has 
assisted  me  at  every  turn  in  its  preparation. 
With  one  exception,  acknowledged  in  its  place, 
all  the  translations  are  his. 

A.  C.  E.  A. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

THE  ESTRANGER        ....  i 

A  POET'S  TOLL         .  ....      37 

THE  PHRASE-MAKER 72 

A  ROMAN  CITIZEN i°7 

FORTUNE'S  LEDGER  ......     144 

A  ROAD  TO  ROME  .         .         .         .176 


ROADS  FROM  ROME 


ROADS    FROM    ROME 

THE  ESTRANGER 


N  the  effort  to  dull  the  edge  of  his 
mental  anguish  by  physical  exhaus- 
tion Catullus  had  walked  far  out 
from  the  town,  through  vineyards 
and  fruit-orchards  parturient  with  autumnal 
stores  and  clamorous  with  eager  companies  of 
pickers  and  vintagers.  On  coming  back  to  the 
eastern  gate  he  found  himself  reluctant  to  pass 
from  the  heedless  activities  of  the  fields  to  the 
bustle  of  the  town  streets  and  the  formal  ob- 
servances of  his  father's  house.  Seeking  a  quiet 
interlude,  he  turned  northward  and  climbed 
the  hill  which  rose  high  above  the  tumultuous 
Adige.  The  shadows  of  the  September  after- 
noon had  begun  to  lengthen  when  he  reached 
the  top  and  threw  himself  upon  the  ground  near 
a  green  ash  tree. 


2  Roads  from  Rome 

The  bodily  exercise  had  at  least  done  him 
this  service,  that  the  formless  misery  of  the 
past  weeks,  the  monstrous,  wordless  sense  of 
desolation,  now  resolved  itself  into  a  grief  for 
which  inner  words,  however  comfortless,  sprang 
into  being.  Below  him  Verona,  proud  sentinel 
between  the  North  and  Rome,  offered  herself 
to  the  embrace  of  the  wild,  tawny  river,  as  if 
seeking  to  retard  its  ominous  journey  from 
Rhaetia's  barbarous  mountains  to  Italy's  sea 
by  Venice.  Far  to  the  northeast  ghostly  Alpine 
peaks  awaited  their  coronal  of  sunset  rose. 
Southward  stretched  the  plain  of  Lombardy. 
Within  easy  reach  of  his  eye  shimmered  the 
lagoon  that  lay  about  Mantua.  The  hour  veiled 
hills  and  plain  in  a  luminous  blue  from  which 
the  sun's  radiance  was  excluded.  Through  the 
thick  kaves  of  the  ash  tree  soughed  the  evening 
wind,  giving  a  voice  to  the  dying  day.  In  its 
moan  Catullus  seemed  to  find  his  own  words: 
"He  is  dead,  he  is  dead."  His  brother  was 
dead.  This  fact  became  at  last  clear  in  his 
consciousness  and  he  began  to  take  it  up  and 
handle  it. 


The  Estranger  3 

The  news  had  come  two  weeks  ago,  just  as  he 
was  on  the  point  of  flying  from  Rome  and  the 
autumn  fevers  to  the  gaieties  of  Naples  and 
Baiae.  That  was  an  easy  escape  for  a  youth 
whose  only  taskmasters  were  the  Muses  and  who 
worked  or  played  at  the  behest  of  his  own  mood. 
But  his  brother,  Valerius,  had  obeyed  the  will 
of  Rome,  serving  her,  according  to  her  need,  at 
all  seasons  and  in  all  places.  Stationed  this 
year  in  Asia  Minor  he  had  fallen  a  victim  to  one 
of  the  disastrous  eastern  fevers.  And  now  Troy 
held  his  ashes,  and  never  again  would  he  offer 
thanks  to  Jupiter  Capitolinus  for  a  safe  return 
to  Rome. 

As  soon  as  the  letter  from  Valerius's  comrade 
reached  him,  Catullus  had  started  for  Verona. 
For  nearly  ten  years  he  had  spoken  of  himself  as 
living  in  Rome,  his  house  and  his  work,  his 
friendships  and  his  love  knitting  him  closely,  he 
had  supposed,  into  the  city's  life.  But  in  this 
naked  moment  she  had  shown  him  her  alien  and 
indifferent  face  and  he  knew  that  he  must  go 
home  or  die.  It  was  not  until  he  saw  his  father's 
stricken  eyes  that  he  realised  that,  for  once,  im- 


4  Roads  from  Rome 

pulse  had  led  him  into  the  path  of  filial  duty.  In 
the  days  that  followed,  however,  except  by  mere 
presence,  neither  mourner  could  help  the  other. 
His  father's  inner  life  had  always  been  inac- 
cessible to  Catullus  and  now  in  a  common  need 
it  seemed  more  than  ever  impossible  to  penetrate 
beyond  the  outposts  of  his  noble  stoicism.  With 
Catullus,  on  the  other  hand,  a  moved  or  troubled 
mind  could  usually  find  an  outlet  in  swift,  hot 
words,  and,  in  the  unnatural  restraint  put  upon 
him  by  his  father's  speechlessness,  his  despair, 
like  a  splinter  of  steel,  had  only  encysted  itself 
more  deeply.  To-day  he  welcomed  the  relief 
of  being  articulate. 

The  tie  between  his  brother  and  himself  was 
formed  on  the  day  of  his  own  birth,  when  the 
two  year  old  Valerius — how  often  their  old  nurse 
had  told  the  story! — had  been  led  in  to  see  him, 
his  little  feet  stumbling  over  each  other  in  happy 
and  unjealous  haste.  Through  the  years  of 
tutelage  they  had  maintained  an  offensive  and 
defensive  alliance  against  father,  nurses  and 
teachers;  and  their  playmates,  even  including 
Caelius,  who  was  admitted  into  a  happy  trium- 


The  Estranger  5 

virate,  knew  that  no  intimacy  could  exact  con- 
cessions from  their  fraternal  loyalty.  Their  days 
were  spent  in  the  same  tasks  and  the  same  play, 
and  the  nights,  isolating  them  from  the  rest  of 
their  little  world,  nurtured  confidence  and 
candour.  Memories  began  to  gather  and  to 
torture  him :  smiling  memories  of  childish  nights 
in  connecting  bedrooms,  when,  left  by  their 
nurse  to  sleep,  each  boy  would  slip  down  into 
the  middle  of  his  bed,  just  catching  sight  of  the 
other  through  the  open  door  in  the  dim  glow  of 
the  nightlamp,  and  defy  Morpheus  with  lively 
tongue;  poignant  memories  of  youthful  nights, 
when  elaborate  apartments  and  separate  serv- 
ants had  not  checked  the  emergence  into  whole- 
some speech  of  vague  ambitions,  lusty  hopes  and 
shy  emotions.  It  was  in  one  of  these  nights 
that  Valerius  had  first  hit  upon  his  favourite 
nickname  for  his  brother.  Pretty  Aufilena  had 
broken  a  promise  and  Catullus  had  vehemently 
maintained  that  she  was  less  honest  than  a  loose 
woman  who  kept  her  part  of  a  bargain.  It  was 
surprising  that  a  conversation  so  trifling  should 
recur  in  this  hour,  but  he  could  see  again  before 


6  Roads  front  Rome 

him  his  brother's  smiling  face  and  hear  him  say- 
ing: "My  Diogenes,  never  let  your  lantern  go 
out.  It  will  light  your  own  feet  even  if  you  never 
find  a  truthful  woman." 

All  this  exquisite  identity  of  daily  life  had 
ended  eight  years  ago.  Catullus  felt  the  weight 
of  his  twenty-six  years  when  he  realised  that 
ever  since  he  and  Valerius  had  ceased  to  be  boys 
they  had  lived  apart,  save  for  the  occasional 
weeks  of  a  soldier's  furloughs.  Their  outward 
paths  had  certainly  diverged  very  widely.  He 
had  chosen  literature  and  Valerius  the  army. 
In  politics  they  had  fallen  equally  far  apart, 
Catullus  following  Cicero  in  allegiance  to  the 
constitution  and  the  senate,  Valerius  continuing 
his  father's  friendship  for  Caesar  and  faith  in 
the  new  democratic  ideal.  Different  friendships 
followed  upon  different  pursuits,  and  divergent 
mental  characteristics  became  intensified.  Ca- 
tullus grew  more  untamed  in  the  pursuit  of  an 
untrammelled  individual  life,  subversive  of  ac- 
cepted standards,  rich  in  emotional  incident  and 
sensuous  perception.  His  adherence  to  the  old 
political  order  was  at  bottom  due  to  an  aesthetic 


The  Estranger  7 

conviction  that  democracy  was  vulgar.  To 
Valerius,  on  the  contrary,  the  Republic  was  the 
chief  concern  and  Caesar  its  saviour  from  fraud 
and  greed.  As  the  years  passed  he  became  more 
and  more  absorbed  in  his  country's  service  at 
the  cost  of  his  own  inclinations.  Gravity  and 
reserve  grew  upon  him  and  the  sacrifice  of  in- 
herited moral  standards  to  the  claims  of  in- 
tellectual freedom  would  to  him  have  been 
abhorrent. 

And  yet  there  had  not  been  even  one  day  in 
these  eight  years  when  Catullus  had  felt  that  he 
and  his  brother  were  not  as  close  to  each  other 
as  in  the  old  Verona  days.  He  had  lived  con- 
stantly with  his  friends  and  rarely  with  his 
brother,  but  below  even  such  friendships  as 
those  with  Cselius  and  Calvus,  Nepos  and 
Cornificius  lay  the  bond  of  brotherhood.  In 
view  of  their  lives  this  bond  had  seemed  to 
Catullus  as  incomprehensible  as  it  was  un- 
breakable. And  he  had  often  wondered — he 
wondered  now  as  he  lay  under  the  ash  tree 
and  listened  to  the  wind — whether  it  had 
had  its  origin  in  some  urgent  determination 


8  Roads  from  Rome 

of   his  mother  who  had  brooded  over  them 
both. 

She  had  died  before  he  was  six  years  old,  but 
he  had  one  vivid  memory  of  her,  belonging  to  his 
fifth  birthday,  the  beginning,  indeed,  of  all 
conscious  memory.  The  day  fell  in  June  and 
could  be  celebrated  at  Sirmio,  their  summer 
home  on  Lake  Benacus.  In  the  morning,  hold- 
ing his  silent  father's  hand,  he  had  received  the 
congratulations  of  the  servants,  and  at  luncheon 
he  had  been  handed  about  among  the  large 
company  of  June  guests  to  be  kissed  and  toasted. 
But  the  high  festival  began  when  all  these  noisy 
people  had  gone  off  for  the  siesta.  Then,  ac- 
cording to  a  deep-laid  plan,  his  mother  and 
Valerius  and  he  had  slipped  unnoticed  out  of  the 
great  marble  doorway  and  run  hand  in  hand 
down  the  olive-silvery  hill  to  the  shore  of  the 
lake.  She  had  promised  to  spend  the  whole 
afternoon  with  them.  Never  had  he  felt  so 
happy.  The  deep  blue  water,  ruffled  by  a 
summer  breeze,  sparkled  with  a  million  points  of 
crystal  light.  Valerius  became  absorbed  in 
trying  to  launch  a  tiny  red-sailed  boat,  but 


The  Estranger  9 

Catullus  rushed  back  to  his  mother,  exclaiming, 
" Mother,  mother,  the  waves  are  laughing  too!" 
And  she  had  caught  him  in  her  arms  and  smiled 
into  his  eyes  and  said:  "Child,  a  great  poet  said 
that  long  ago.  Are  you  going  to  be  a  poet  some 
day?  Is  that  all  my  bad  dreams  mean?  " 

Then  she  had  called  Valerius  and  asked  if 
they  wanted  a  story  of  the  sea,  and  they  had 
curled  up  in  the  hollows  of  her  arms  and  she  had 
told  them  about  the  Argo,  the  first  ship  that 
ever  set  forth  upon  the  waters;  of  how,  when  her 
prow  broke  through  the  waves,  the  sailors  could 
see  white-faced  Nereids  dance  and  beckon,  and 
of  how  she  bore  within  her  hold  many  heroes 
dedicated  to  a  great  quest.  It  was  the  first  time 
Catullus  had  heard  the  magic  tale  of  the  Golden 
Fleece  and  in  his  mother's  harp-like  voice  it  had 
brought  him  his  first  desire  for  strange  lands  and 
the  wide,  grey  spaces  of  distant  seas.  Then  he 
had  felt  his  mother's  arm  tighten  around  him 
and  something  in  her  voice  made  his  throat 
ache,  as  she  went  on  to  tell  them  of  the  sorceress 
Medea;  how  she  brought  the  leader  of  the  quest 
into  wicked  ways,  so  that  the  glory  of  his  heroism 


io  Roads  from  Rome 

counted  for  nothing  and  misery  pursued  him, 
and  how  she  still  lived  on  in  one  disguise  after 
another,  working  ruin,  when  unresisted,  by 
poisoned  sheen  or  honeyed  draught.  Catullus 
began  to  feel  very  much  frightened,  and  then  all 
at  once  his  mother  jumped  up  and  called  out 
excitedly,  "Oh,  see,  a  Nereid,  a  Nereid!"  And 
they  had  all  three  rushed  wildly  down  the  beach 
to  the  foamy  edge  of  the  lake,  and  there  she 
danced  with  them,  her  blue  eyes  laughing  like 
the  waves  and  her  loosened  hair  shining  like  the 
red-gold  clouds  around  the  setting  sun.  They 
had  danced  until  the  sun  slipped  below  the 
clouds  and  out  of  sight,  and  a  servant  had  come 
with  cloaks  and  a  reminder  of  the  dinner  hour. 

Now  from  the  hill  above  Verona  Catullus 
could  see  the  red  gold  of  another  sunset  and  he 
was  alone.  Valerius,  who  had  known  him  with 
that  Nereid-mother,  had  gone  forever.  Because 
they  had  lain  upon  the  same  mother's  breast 
and  danced  with  her  upon  the  Sirmian  shore, 
Catullus  had  always  known  that  his  older 
brother's  sober  life  was  the  fruit  of  a  wine-red 
passion  for  Rome's  glory.  And  Valerius's 


The  Estranger  1 1 

knowledge  of  him — ah,  how  penetrating  that 
had  been! 

Across  the  plain  below  him  stretched  the  road 
to  Mantua.  Was  it  only  last  April  that  upon 
this  road  he  and  Valerius  had  had  that  revealing 
hour?  The  most  devastating  of  all  his  memories 
swept  in  upon  him.  Valerius  had  had  his  first 
furlough  in  two  years  and  they  had  spent  a 
week  of  it  together  in  Verona.  The  day  before 
Valerius  was  to  leave  to  meet  his  transport  at 
Brindisi  they  had  repeated  a  favorite  excursion 
of  their  childhood  to  an  excellent  farm  a  little 
beyond  Mantua,  to  leave  the  house  steward's 
orders  for  the  season's  honey. 

What  a  day  it  had  been,  with  the  spring  air 
which  set  mind  and  feet  astir,  the  ride  along  the 
rush-fringed  banks  of  the  winding  Mincio  and 
the  unworldly  hours  in  the  old  farmstead!  The 
cattle-sheds  were  fragrant  with  the  burning  of 
cedar  and  of  Syrian  gum  to  keep  off  snakes,  and 
Catullus  had  felt  more  strongly  than  ever  that 
in  the  general  redolence  of  homely  virtues, 
natural  activities  and  scrupulous  standards  all 
the  noisome  life  of  town  and  city  was  kept  at 


12  Roads  from  Rome 

bay.  The  same  wooden  image  of  Bacchus  hung 
from  a  pine  tree  in  the  vineyard,  and  the  same 
weather-worn  Ceres  stood  among  the  first  grain, 
awaiting  the  promise  of  her  sheaves.  Valerius 
had  been  asked  by  his  father's  overseer  to  make 
inquiries  about  a  yoke  of  oxen,  and  Catullus 
went  off  to  look  at  the  bee-hives  in  their  sheltered 
corner  near  a  wild  olive  tree.  When  he  came 
back  he  found  his  brother  seated  on  a  stone 
bench,  carving  an  odd  little  satyr  out  of  a  bit  of 
wood  and  talking  to  a  fragile  looking  boy  about 
twelve  years  old.  Valerius's  sympathetic  gravity 
always  charmed  children  and  Catullus  was  not 
surprised  to  see  this  boy's  brown  eyes  lifted  in 
eager  confidence  to  the  older  face. 

"So,"  Valerius  was  saying,  "you  don't  think 
we  work  only  to  live?  I  believe  you  are  right. 
You  find  the  crops  so  beautiful  that  you  don't 
mind  weeding,  and  I  find  Rome  so  beautiful  that 
I  don't  mind  fighting."  "Rome!"  The  boy's 
face  quivered  and  his  singularly  sweet  voice  sank 
to  a  whisper.  "Do  you  fight  for  Rome?  Father 
doesn't  know  it,  but  I  pray  every  day  to  the 
Good  Goddess  in  the  grainfield  that  she  will  let 


The  E stranger  13 

me  go  to  Rome  some  day.  Do  you  think  she 
will?"  Valerius  rose  and  looked  down  into  the 
child's  starry  eyes.  "Perhaps  she  will  for  Rome's 
own  sake,"  he  said.  "Every  lover  counts. 
What  is  your  name,  Companion-in-arms?  I 
should  like  to  know  you  when  you  come." 
"Virgil,"  the  boy  answered  shyly,  colouring  and 
drawing  back  as  he  saw  Catullus.  A  farm 
servant  brought  up  the  visitors'  horses.  "  Good- 
bye, little  Virgil,"  Valerius  called  out,  as  he 
mounted.  "A  fair  harvest  to  your  crops  and 
your  dreams." 

The  brothers  rode  on  for  some  time  without 
speaking,  Valerius  rather  sombrely,  it  seemed, 
absorbed  in  his  own  thoughts.  When  he  broke 
the  silence  it  was  to  say  abruptly:  "I  wonder  if, 
when  he  goes  to  Rome,  he  will  keep  the  light  in 
those  eyes  and  the  music  in  that  young  throat." 
Then  he  brought  his  horse  close  up  to  his 
brother's  and  spoke  rapidly  as  if  he  must  rid 
himself  of  the  weight  of  words.  "My  Lantern 
Bearer,  you  are  not  going  to  lose  your  light  and 
your  music,  are  you?  The  last  time  I  saw  Cicero 
he  talked  to  me  about  your  poetry  and  your 


14  Roads  from  Rome 

gifts,  which  you  know  I  cannot  judge  as  he  can. 
He  told  me  that  for  all  your  'Greek  learning' 
and  your  'Alexandrian  technique'  no  one  could 
doubt  the  good  red  Italian  blood  in  your  verses, 
or  even  the  homely  strain  of  our  own  little  town. 
I  confess  I  was  thankful  to  hear  a  literary  man 
and  a  friend  praise  you  for  not  being  cosmopol- 
itan. I  am  not  afraid  now  of  your  going  over 
to  the  Greeks.  But  are  you  in  danger  of  losing 
Verona  in  Rome?" 

The  gathering  dusk,  the  day's  pure  happiness, 
the  sense  of  impending  separation  opened 
Catullus's  heart.  "Do  you  mean  Clodia?"  he 
asked  straightforwardly.  "Did  Cicero  talk  of 
her  too?"  "Not  only  Cicero,"  Valerius  had 
answered  gently,  "and  not  only  your  other 
friends.  Will  you  tell  me  of  her  yourself?" 
"What  have  you  heard?"  Catullus  asked. 
Valerius  paused  and  then  gave  a  direct  and 
harsh  reply:  "That  she  was  a  Medea  to  her 
husband,  has  been  a  Juno  to  her  brother's 
Jupiter  and  is  an  easy  mistress  to  many  lovers." 

After  that,  Catullus  was  thankful  now  to 
remember,  he  himself  had  talked  passionately 


The  Estranger  15 

as  the  road  slipped  away  under  their  horses' 
feet.  He  had  told  Valerius  how  cruel  the  world 
had  been  to  Clodia.  Metellus  had  been  sick  all 
winter  and  had  died  as  other  men  die.  He  had 
belittled  her  by  every  indignity  that  a  man  of 
rank  can  put  upon  his  wife,  but  she  had  borne 
with  him  patiently  enough.  Because  she  was 
no  Alcestis  need  she  be  called  a  Medea  or  a 
Clytemnestra?  And  because  the  unspeakable 
Clodius  had  played  Jupiter  to  his  youngest 
sister's  Juno  need  Clodia  be  considered  less  than 
a  Diana  to  his  Apollo?  As  for  her  lovers — his 
voice  broke  upon  the  word — she  loved  him, 
Catullus,  strange  as  that  seemed,  and  him  only. 
Of  course,  like  all  women  of  charm,  she  could 
play  the  harmless  coquette  with  other  men. 
He  hated  the  domestic  woman — Lucretius's 
dun-coloured  wife,  for  instance — on  whom  no 
man  except  her  mate  would  cast  an  eye. 

He  wanted  men  to  fall  at  his  Love's  feet,  he 
thanked  Aphrodite  that  she  had  the  manner  and 
the  subtle  fire  and  the  grace  to  bring  them  there. 
Her  mind  was  wonderful  too,  aflame,  like 
Sappho's,  with  the  love  of  beauty.  That  was 


i6 


why  he  called  her  Lesbia.  He  had  used  Sappho's 
great  love  poem  (Valerius  probably  did  not 
know  it,  but  it  was  like  a  purple  wing  from 
Eros's  shoulder)  as  his  first  messenger  to  her, 
when  his  heart  had  grown  hot  as  ^Etna's  fire  or 
the  springs  of  Thermopylae.  She  had  finally 
consented  to  meet  him  at  Allius's  house.  After- 
wards she  had  told  him  that  the  day  was  marked 
for  her  also  by  a  white  stone. 

If  Valerius  could  only  know  how  he  felt!  She 
was  the  greatest  lady  in  Rome,  accoutred  with 
wealth  and  prestige  and  incomparable  beauty. 
And  she  loved  him,  and  was  as  good  and  pure 
and  tender-hearted  as  any  unmarried  girl  in 
Verona.  He  was  her  lover,  but  often  he  felt 
toward  her  as  a  father  might  feel  toward  a 
child.  Catullus  had  trembled  as  he  brought  out 
from  his  inner  sanctuary  this  shyest  treasure. 
And  never  should  he  forget  the  healing  sense  of 
peace  that  came  to  him  when  Valerius  rode 
closer  and  put  his  arm  around  his  shoulder. 
"Diogenes,"  he  said,  "your  flame  is  still  bright. 
I  could  wish  you  had  not  fallen  in  love  with 
another  man's  wife,  and  if  he  were  still  living  I 


The  E  sir  anger  17 

should  try  to  convince  you  of  the  folly  of  it.  But 
I  know  this  hot  heart  of  yours  is  as  pure  as  the 
snow  we  see  on  the  Alps  in  midsummer.  That 
is  all  I  need  to  know."  And  they  had  ridden  on 
in  the  darkness  toward  the  lights  of  home. 

The  wind  rose  in  a  fresh  wail:  "He  is  dead,  he 
is  dead."  The  touch  of  his  arm  was  lost  in  the 
unawakening  night.  His  perfect  speech  was 
stilled  in  the  everlasting  silence.  A  smile,  both 
bitter  and  wistful,  came  upon  Catullus's  lips  as 
he  remembered  a  letter  he  had  had  yesterday 
from  Lucretius,  bidding  him  listen  to  the  voice 
of  Nature  who  would  bring  him  peace.  "What 
is  so  bitter,"  his  friend  had  urged,  "if  it  comes 
in  the  end  to  sleep?  The  wretched  cannot  want 
more  of  life,  and  the  happy  men,  men  like 
Valerius,  go  unreluctantly,  like  well-fed  guests 
from  a  banquet,  to  enter  upon  untroubled  rest. 
Nor  is  his  death  outside  of  law.  From  all 
eternity  life  and  death  have  been  at  war  with 
each  other.  No  day  and  no  night  passes  when 
the  first  cry  of  a  child  tossed  up  on  the  shores 
of  light  is  not  mingled  with  the  wailings  of 
mourners.  Let  me  tell  you  how  you  may  trans- 


1 8  Roads  from  Rome 

mute  your  sorrow.  A  battle  rages  in  the  plain. 
The  earth  is  shaken  with  the  violent  charges  of 
the  cavalry  and  with  the  tramping  feet  of  men. 
Cruel  weapons  gleam  in  the  sun.  But  to  one 
afar  off  upon  a  hill  the  army  is  but  a  bright  spot 
in  the  valley,  adding  beauty,  it  may  well  be,  to 
a  sombre  scene.  And  so,  ascending  into  the 
serene  citadel  of  Knowledge  and  looking  down 
upon  our  noisy  griefs,  we  may  find  them  to  be  but 
high  lights,  ennobling  life's  monotonous  plain. 
My  friend,  come  to  Nature  and  learn  of  her. 
Surely  Valerius  would  have  wished  you  peace." 
"Peace,  peace!"  Catullus  groaned  aloud. 
Lucretius  seemed  as  remote  as  the  indifferent 
gods.  Valerius,  who  knew  his  feet  were  shaped 
for  human  ways,  would  have  understood  that  he 
could  not  scale  the  cold  steeps  of  thought.  If 
he  suffered  in  this  hour,  what  comfort  was  there 
in  the  thought  of  other  suffering  and  other 
years?  If  Troy  now  held  Valerius,  what  peace 
was  there  in  knowing  that  its  accursed  earth 
once  covered  Hector  and  Patroclus  also,  and 
would  be  forever  the  common  grave  of  Asia  and 
of  Europe?  What  healing  had  nature  or  law  to 


The  E  sir  anger  19 

give  when  flesh  was  torn  from  flesh  and  heart 
estranged  from  heart  beyond  recall? 

Rising,  Catullus  looked  down  upon  the  un- 
resting river.  As  he  walked  homeward,  clear- 
eyed,  at  last,  but  unassuaged,  he  knew  that  for 
him  also  there  could  never  again  be  peaceful 
currents.  Like  the  Adige,  his  tumultuous  grief, 
having  its  source  in  the  pure  springs  of  childish 
love,  must  surge  through  the  years  of  his  man- 
hood, until  at  last  it  might  lose  itself  in  the  vast 
sea  of  his  own  annihilation. 


II 

In  the  capital  a  dull  winter  was  being  proph- 
esied. Only  one  gleam  was  discoverable  in  the 
social  twilight.  The  Progressives  had  shipped 
Cato  off  to  Cyprus  and  society  was  rid  for  one 
season  of  a  man  with  a  tongue,  who  believed  in 
economy  when  money  was  plentiful,  in  sobriety 
when  pleasure  was  multiform  and  in  domestic 
fidelities  when  escape  was  easy.  But  they  had 
done  irreparable  mischief  in  disposing  more 
summarily  of  Cicero.  With  the  Conservative 


2O  Roads  from  Rome 

leader  exiled  to  Greece  and  the  Progressive 
leader  himself  taking  the  eagles  into  Gaul  the 
winter's  brilliance  was  threatened  with  eclipse. 
Pompey  was  left  in  Rome,  but  the  waning  of  his 
political  star,  it  could  not  be  denied,  had  dimmed 
his  social  lustre.  Clodius,  of  course,  was  in  full 
swing,  triumphant  in  Caesar's  friendship  and 
Cicero's  defeat,  but  if  society  was  able  to  stom- 
ach him,  he  himself  had  the  audacious  honesty 
to  foregather  in  grosser  companionship.  Even 
Lucullus,  whose  food  and  wine  had  come  to 
seem  a  permanent  refuge  amid  political  changes 
and  social  shifts,  must  now  be  counted  out. 
His  mind  was  failing,  and  the  beautiful  Apollo 
dining  room  and  terraced  gardens  would  prob- 
ably never  be  opened  again. 

In  view  of  the  impending  handicaps  Clodia 
was  especially  anxious  that  a  dinner  she  was  to 
give  immediately  on  her  return  from  Baiae  in 
mid-October  should  be  a  conspicuous  success. 
During  her  husband's  consulship  two  years  ago 
she  had  won  great  repute  for  inducing  men  of 
all  parties,  officials,  artists  and  writers,  to  meet 
in  her  house.  Last  year,  owing  to  Metellus's 


The  E stranger  21 

sickness  and  death,  she  had  not  done  anything 
on  a  large  scale.  This  autumn  she  had  come 
back  determined  to  reassume  her  position.  She 
was  unaffected  by  the  old-fashioned  prejudice 
against  widows  entertaining  and  she  had  nothing 
to  fear  from  the  social  skill  of  this  year's  consuls. 
Her  invitations  had  been  hurried  out,  and  now 
in  her  private  sitting  room,  known  as  the  Venus 
Room  from  its  choicest  ornament,  a  life-sized 
statue  of  Venus  the  Plunderer,  she  was  looking 
over  the  answers  which  had  been  sorted  for  her 
by  her  secretary.  The  Greek,  waiting  for  further 
orders,  looked  at  her  with  admiring,  if  disillu- 
sioned, eyes.  Large  and  robust,  her  magnificent 
figure  could  display  no  ungraceful  lines  as  she 
sat  on  the  low  carved  chair  in  front  of  a  curtain 
of  golden  Chinese  silk.  Her  dress  was  of  a 
strange  sea-green  and  emeralds  shone  in  her  ears 
and  her  heavy,  black  hair.  An  orange-coloured 
cat  with  gleaming,  yellow  eyes  curved  its  tail 
across  her  feet.  Above  her  right  shoulder  hung 
a  silver  cage  containing  a  little  bird  which 
chirped  and  twittered  in  silly  ignorance  of  its 
mistress's  mood.  Anger  disfigured  her  beautiful 


22  Roads  from  Rome 

mouth  and  eyes.  The  list  of  regrets  stretched 
out  to  sinister  length  and  included  such  pillars 
of  society  as  Brutus  and  Sempronia,  Bibulus 
and  Portia.  A  cynical  smile  relieved  Clodia's 
sullen  lips.  Did  these  braggarts  imagine  her 
blind  to  the  fact  that  if  lively  Sempronia  and 
stupid  Bibulus  could  conveniently  die,  Brutus 
and  Portia,  who  were  wiping  her  off  their  visit- 
ing lists  because  her  feet  had  strayed  beyond 
the  marriage  paddock,  would  make  short  work 
of  their  mourning? 

Aurelia's  declination  she  had  expected.  Her 
inordinate  pride  in  being  Caesar's  mother  had 
not  modified  her  arrogant,  old-time  severity 
toward  the  freedom  of  modern  life.  But  that 
Calpurnia  should  plead  her  husband's  absence 
as  an  excuse  was  ominous.  Everyone  knew  that 
he  dictated  her  social  relations.  Terentia  had 
been  implacable  since  that  amusing  winter  when 
Clodia  had  spread  a  net  for  Cicero.  For  her  own 
sex  Clodia  had  the  hawk's  contempt  for  spar- 
rows, but  if  Caesar  as  well  as  Cicero  were  to 
withdraw  from  her  arena,  she  might  as  well 
prepare  herself  for  the  inverted  thumbs  of  Rome. 


The  Estranger  23 

On  her  list  of  acceptances,  outside  of  her  own 
sisters,  who  had  won  intellectual  freedom  in  the 
divorce  courts,  she  found  the  names  of  only  two 
women — virtuous  Hortensia,  who  was  proud  of 
her  emancipated  ideas,  and  Marcia,  who  was 
enjoying  her  husband's  Cyprian  business  as 
much  as  the  rest  of  the  world.  Men,  on  the 
other  hand,  bachelors  and  divorces,  abounded. 
Catullus,  luckily,  was  still  in  Verona,  nursing 
his  dull  grief  for  that  impossible  brother.  But 
she  was  glad  to  be  assured  that  his  friend,  Rufus 
Caelius,  would  come.  If  Terentia  and  Tullia 
had  tried  to  poison  the  mind  of  Cicero's  protege 
against  her,  obviously  they  had  not  succeeded. 
He  was  worth  cultivating.  His  years  in  Asia 
Minor  had  made  a  man  of  the  world  out  of  a 
charming  Veronese  boy  and  he  was  already  be- 
coming known  for  brilliant  work  at  the  bar. 
The  house  he  had  just  bought  faced  the  southern 
end  of  her  own  garden  and  gave  evidence  alike 
of  his  money  and  his  taste. 

And  yet,  in  spite  of  Caelius's  connections,  he 
was  still  too  young  to  wield  social  power,  and  it 
was  with  intense  chagrin  that  Clodia  realised 


24  Roads  from  Rome 

that  his  was  the  most  distinguished  name  upon 
her  dinner  list.  Indifferent  to  the  opinion  of  the 
world  as  long  as  she  could  keep  her  shapely  foot 
upon  its  neck,  she  dreaded  more  than  anything 
else  a  loss  of  the  social  prestige  which  enabled  her 
to  seek  pleasure  where  she  chose.  Was  this  fear 
at  last  overtaking  her  swiftest  pace?  Her 
secretary,  watching  her,  prepared  himself  for 
one  of  the  violent  storms  with  which  all  her 
servants  were  familiar.  But  at  this  moment  a 
house  slave  came  in  to  ask  if  she  would  see 
Lucretius.  "Him  and  no  one  else,"  she  answered 
curtly,  and  the  Greekling  slipped  thankfully  out 
as  the  curtains  were  drawn  aside  to  admit  a 
man,  about  thirty-five  years  old,  whose  face  and 
bearing  brought  suddenly  into  the  fretful  room 
a  consciousness  of  a  larger  world,  a  more  difficult 
arena.  Clodia  smiled,  and  her  beauty  emerged 
like  the  argent  moon  from  sullen  clouds.  An 
extraordinary  friendship  existed  between  this 
woman  who  was  the  bawd  of  every  tongue  in 
Rome,  from  Palatine  to  Subura,  and  this  man 
whose  very  name  was  unknown  to  nine-tenths 
of  his  fellow-citizens  and  who  could  have  passed 


The  Estranger  25 

unrecognised  among  most  of  the  aristocrats  who 
knew  his  family  or  of  the  literary  men  who  had 
it  from  Cicero  that  he  was  at  work  on  a  magnum 
opus.  Cicero  was  Lucretius's  only  close  friend, 
and  supposed  he  had  also  read  every  page  of 
Clodia's  life,  but  not  even  he  guessed  that  a 
chance  conversation  had  originated  a  friendship 
which  Clodia  found  unique  because  it  was  sex- 
less, and  Lucretius  because,  within  its  barriers, 
he  dared  display  some  of  his  vacillations  of  pur- 
pose. The  woman  who  was  a  prey  of  moods 
seemed  to  understand  that  when  he  chose 
science  as  his  mistress  he  had  strangled  a  pas- 
sion for  poetry;  and  that  when  he  had  deter- 
mined to  withdraw  from  the  life  of  his  day 
and  generation  and  to  pursue,  for  humanity's 
sake,  that  Truth  which  alone  is  immortal 
beyond  the  waxing  and  waning  of  nations, 
he  had  violated  a  craving  to  consecrate  his 
time  to  the  immediate  service  of  Rome.  And 
he,  in  his  turn,  who  could  penetrate  beyond 
the  flaming  ramparts  of  the  world  in  his  search 
for  causes,  had  somehow  discovered  beyond 
this  woman's  deadly  fires  a  cold  retreat  of 


26  Roads  from  Rome 

thought,  where  all  things  were  stripped  naked 
of  pretence. 

Their  intercourse  was  fitful  and  unconven- 
tional. Clodia  was  accustomed  to  Lucretius's 
coming  at  unexpected  hours  with  unexpected 
demands  upon  her  understanding.  He  even 
came,  now  and  then,  in  those  strange  moods 
which  Cicero  said  made  him  wonder  whether 
the  gods  had  confused  neighbouring  brews  and 
ladled  out  madness  when  they  meant  to  dip  from 
the  vat  of  genius.  At  such  times  he  might  go  as 
abruptly  as  he  came,  leaving  some  wild  sentence 
reechoing  behind  him.  But  at  all  times  they 
were  amazingly  frank  with  each  other.  So  now 
Clodia's  eyes  met  his  calmly  enough  as  he  said 
without  any  preface:  "I  have  come  to  answer 
your  note.  I  prefer  that  my  wife  should  keep 
out  of  your  circle.  You  used  to  have  doves  about 
you,  who  could  protect  a  wren,  but  they  are 
fluttering  away  now  and  your  own  plumage  is 
appalling."  With  the  phrase  his  eyes  became 
conscious  of  her  emeralds  and  her  shimmering 
Cean  silks  and  then  travelled  to  the  nude  grace 
of  Venus  the  Plunderer.  He  faced  her  violently. 


The  Estranger  27 

"Clodia,"  he  said,  slaying  a  sentence  on  her  lips, 
"Clodia,  do  you  know  that  hell  is  here  on  this 
earth  and  that  such  as  you  help  to  people  it? 
There  is  no  Tityus,  his  heart  eaten  out  by 
vultures,  save  the  victim  of  passion.  And  what 
passion  is  more  devouring  than  that  frenzy  of 
the  lover  which  is  never  satisfied?  Venus's 
garlanded  hours  are  followed  by  misery.  She 
plunders  men  of  their  money,  of  their  liberty,  of 
their  character.  Duties  give  way  to  cups  and 
perfumes  and  garlands.  And  yet,  amid  the  very 
flowers  pain  dwells.  The  lover  fails  to  under- 
stand and  sickness  creeps  upon  him,  as  men 
sicken  of  hidden  poison.  Tell  me,"  he  added 
brutally,  leaning  toward  her,  "for  who  should 
know  better  than  you?  does  not  the  sweetest 
hour  of  love  hold  a  drop  of  bitter?  Why  do  you 
not  restore  your  lovers  to  their  reason,  to  the 
service  of  the  state,  to  a  knowledge  of  nature?  " 
His  eyes  were  hot  with  pity  for  the  world's 
pain.  Hers  grew  cold.  "Jove,"  she  sneered, 
"rules  the  world  and  kisses  Juno  between  the 
thunderbolts.  Men  have  been  known  to  con- 
quer the  Helvetii  with  their  right  hands  and 


28  Roads  from  Rome 

bring  roses  to  Venus  with  their  left.  Your 
'poison'  is  but  the  spicy  sauce  for  a  strong  man's 
meat,  your  'plundering'  but  the  stealing  of  a 
napkin  from  a  loaded  table.  Look  for  your 
denizens  of  hell  not  among  lovers  of  women,  but 
among  lovers  of  money  and  of  power  and  of 
fame.  Their  dreams  are  the  futile  frenzies." 

"Dreams!"  Lucretius  interrupted.  Clodia 
shrank  a  little  from  the  strange  look  in  his  eyes. 
"Do  you,  too,  dream  at  night?  I  worked  late 
last  night,  struggling  to  fit  into  Latin  words 
ideas  no  Latin  mind  ever  had.  Toward  morning 
I  fell  asleep  and  then  I  seemed  to  be  borne  over 
strange  seas  and  rivers  and  mountains  and  to  be 
crossing  plains  on  foot  and  to  hear  strange 
noises.  These  waked  me  at  last  and  I  sprang  up 
and  walked  out  into  the  Campagna  where  the 
dawn  was  fresh  and  cool.  But  all  day  I  have 
scarcely  felt  at  home.  And  I  may  dream  again 
to-night.  This  time  my  dead  may  appear  to  me. 
They  often  do."  He  walked  toward  her  suddenly 
and  his  eyes  seemed  to  bore  into  hers.  "Do  you 
ever  dream  of  your  dead?"  A  horrible  fright 
took  possession  of  her.  She  fell  back  against  the 


The  Estranger  29 

Venus,  her  sea-green  dress  rippling  upon  the 
white  marble,  and  covered  her  eyes  with  her 
hands.  When  she  looked  again,  Lucretius  was 
gone. 

How  terrible  he  had  been  to-day!  Dream  of 
the  dead,  he  had  said,  the  dead !  And  why  had 
he  talked  of  a  hidden  poison  of  which  men  might 
sicken  and  die?  She  felt  a  silly  desire  to  shriek, 
to  strike  her  head  against  the  painted  wall,  to 
tear  the  jewels  from  her  ears.  The  orange  cat 
arched  its  back  and  rubbed  its  head  against  her. 
She  kicked  it  fiercely,  and  its  snarl  of  pain  seemed 
to  bring  her  to  her  senses.  She  picked  the 
creature  up  and  stroked  it.  The  bird  in  the  cage 
broke  into  a  mad  little  melody.  How  morbid 
she  was  growing!  She  had  been  depressed  by  her 
ridiculous  dinner  and  Lucretius  had  been  most 
unpleasant.  He  was  such  a  fool,  too,  in  his  idea 
of  love.  The  brevity  of  the  heated  hours  was 
the  flame's  best  fuel.  Venus  the  Plunderer 
seemed  to  smile,  and  there  quickened  within  her 
the  desire  for  excitement,  for  the  exercise  of 
power,  for  the  obliterating  ecstasies  of  a  fresh 
amour.  She  had  not  had  a  lover  since  she 


30  Roads  from  Rome 

accepted  Catullus.  How  the  thought  of  that 
boy  sickened  her!  He  had  been  so  absurd  that 
first  day  when  she  went  to  him  at  Allius's. 
After  writing  her  that  his  heart  was  an  ^Etna 
of  imprisoned  fire,  in  the  first  moment  he  had 
reminded  her  of  ice-cold  Alps.  He  had  knelt  and 
kissed  her  foot  and  then  had  kissed  her  lips — 
her  lips! — as  coolly  as  a  father  might  kiss  a  child. 
The  unleashed  passion,  the  lordly  love-making 
which  followed  had  won  her.  But  that  first 
caress  and  its  fellow  at  later  meetings  was  like 
crystal  water  in  strong  wine — she  preferred  hers 
unmixed.  Of  a  poet  she  had  had  enough  for 
one  while;  if  she  ever  wanted  him  back  she 
need  only  say  so. 

In  the  mean  time  it  would  be  a  relief  to  play 
the  game  with  a  man  who  understood  it.  Youth 
she  enjoyed,  if  it  were  not  too  inexperienced. 
Caelius's  smile,  for  instance,  boyish  and  inviting, 
had  seemed  to  her  full  of  promise.  He  was 
worth  the  winning  and  was  close  at  hand. 
Catullus  had  introduced  him,  which  would  add 
piquancy  to  her  letting  the  din  of  the  Forum 
succeed  the  babbling  of  Heliconian  streams. 


The  E stranger  3 1 

Suddenly  she  laughed  aloud,  cruelly,  as  another 
thought  struck  her.  How  furious  and  how  im- 
potent Cicero  would  be!  If  she  could  play  with 
this  disciple  of  his,  and  then  divest  him  of  every 
shred  of  reputation,  she  might  feel  that  at  last 
she  was  avenged  on  the  man  whom  she  had 
meant  to  marry  (after  they  had  sloughed  off 
Metellus  and  Terentia)  and  who  had  escaped 
her.  Calling  back  her  secretary  she  ordered 
writing  materials  and  with  her  own  hand  wrote 
the  following  note: 

"Does  Cselius  know  that  Clodia's  roses  are 
loveliest  at  dusk,  when  the  first  stars  alone  keep 
watch?" 

Ill 

About  seven  o'clock  on  a  clear  evening  of 
early  November  Catullus  arrived  in  Rome. 
With  the  passage  of  the  weeks  his  jealous  grief 
had  learned  to  dwell  with  other  emotions,  and  a 
longing  to  be  with  Lesbia,  once  more  admitted, 
had  reassumed  its  habitual  sway.  Coming  first 
in  guise  of  the  need  of  comfort,  it  had  im- 
pelled him  to  leave  Verona,  and  on  the  journey 


32  Roads  from  Rome 

it  had  grown  into  a  lover's  exclusive  frenzy. 
To-morrow  he  might  examine  the  structure  of 
his  familiar  life  which  had  been  beaten  upon  by 
the  storm  of  sorrow.  To-night  his  ears  rang 
and  his  eyes  were  misty  with  the  desire  to  see 
Lesbia.  He  had  written  her  that  he  would  call 
the  following  morning,  but  he  could  not  wait. 
Stopping  only  to  dress  after  his  journey,  fitting 
himself,  he  shyly  thought,  to  take  her  loveliness 
into  his  arms,  he  started  for  the  Palatine.  The 
full  moon  illumined  the  city,  but  he  had  no  eyes 
for  the  marvel  wrought  upon  temples  and 
porticoes.  Clodia's  house  stood  at  the  farther 
end  of  the  hill,  her  gardens  stretching  towards 
the  Tiber  and  offering  to  her  intimates  a  pleas- 
anter  approach  than  the  usual  thoroughfare. 
To-night  he  found  the  entrance  gate  still  open 
and  made  his  way  through  the  long  avenue  of 
cypress  trees,  hearing  his  own  heart  beat  in  the 
shadowed  silence.  The  avenue  ended  in  a  wide, 
open  space,  dominated  by  a  huge  fountain. 
The  kindly  moonlight  lent  an  unwonted  grace 
to  the  coarse  workmanship  of  the  marble 
Nymphs  which  sprawled  in  the  waters  of  the 


The  E stranger  33 

central  basin,  their  shoulders  and  breasts 
drenched  in  silvered  spray.  Upon  the  night  air 
hung  the  faint  scent  of  late  roses.  It  had  been 
among  summer  roses  under  a  summer  moon 
that  Catullus  had  once  drunk  deepest  of  Lesbia's 
honeyed  cup.  This  autumn  night  seemed 
freighted  with  the  same  warmth  and  sweetness. 
He  was  hurrying  forward  when  he  caught  sight 
of  two  figures  turning  the  corner  of  a  tall  box 
hedge.  His  heart  leaped  and  then  stood  still. 
A  woman  and  a  man  walked  to  the  fountain 
and  sat  down  upon  the  carved  balustrade. 
The  woman  unfastened  her  white  cloak.  The 
man  laughed  low  and  bent  and  kissed  her  white 
throat  where  it  rose  above  soft  silken  folds. 
Clodia  loosened  the  folds.  Cselius  laughed 
again. 

Catullus  never  remembered  clearly  what 
happened  to  him  that  night  after  he  had  plunged 
down  the  cypress  avenue,  his  feet  making  no 
sound  on  the  green  turf.  In  the  mad  hours  he 
found  his  first  way  into  haunts  of  the  Subura 
which  later  became  familiar  enough  to  him,  and 
at  dawn  he  came  home  spent.  Standing  at  his 


34 

window,  he  watched  the  pitiless,  grey  light 
break  over  Rome.  The  magic  city  of  the  moon- 
lit night,  the  creation  of  fragile,  reflected  radi- 
ance, had  evanished  in  bricks  and  mortar.  The 
city  of  his  heart,  also,  built  of  gossamer  dreams 
and  faiths,  lay  before  him,  reduced  to  the  hide- 
ous realities  of  impure  love  and  lying  friendship. 
In  the  chaos  substituted  for  his  accustomed 
world  he  recognised  only  a  grave  in  Troy. 

His  servant  found  him  in  a  delirium  and  for  a 
week  his  fever  ran  high.  In  it  were  consumed 
the  illusions  of  which  it  had  been  born.  As  he 
gained  strength  again,  he  found  that  his  anger 
against  Cselius  was  more  contemptuous  than 
regretful;  he  discovered  a  sneering  desire  for 
Lesbia's  beauty  divorced  from  a  regard  for  her 
purity.  The  ashes  of  his  old  love  for  her,  the 
love  that  Valerius  had  understood,  in  the  dusk, 
coming  home  from  Mantua,  were  hidden  away 
in  their  burial  urn.  Should  he  hold  out  his  cold 
hands  to  this  new  fire?  Should  he  go  to  her  as 
a  suppliant  and  pay  in  reiterated  torture  for 
Clytemnestra's  embrace  and  for  Juno's  regilded 
favours?  He  was  unaccustomed  to  weighing 


The  Estr anger  35 

impulses,  to  resisting  emotions.  For  the  first 
time  in  his  life  slothful  reason  arose  and  fought 
with  desire. 

The  issue  of  the  conflict  was  still  in  the  bal- 
ance when,  a  few  days  later,  a  little  gold  box  was 
brought  to  him  without  name  or  note.  Opening 
it  he  found  a  round,  white  stone.  Loosened  flame 
could  have  leaped  no  more  swiftly  to  its  goal. 
Lesbia  had  said  a  white  stone  marked  in  her 
memory  the  day  she  had  first  given  herself  to 
him.  She  wanted  him  to  come  to  her.  She  was 
holding  out  to  him  her  white  arms.  He  trembled 
with  a  passion  which  no  longer  filtered  through 
shyness.  The  listlessness  of  his  body  was  gone. 
His  house  was  not  a  prison  and  the  Palatine  was 
near.  Valerius  would  never  come  back  from 
Asia,  but  Lesbia  stood  within  his  hand's  sweet 
reach. 

As  he  made  his  way  through  the  Forum  two 
drunken  wretches  shambled  past  him,  and  he 
caught  a  coarse  laugh  and  the  words,  "Our 
Palatine  Medea."  Why  did  his  ears  ring, 
suddenly,  strangely,  with  the  laughter  of  bright, 
blue  waves  and  the  cadences  of  a  voice  telling 


36  Roads  from  Rome 

a  child  Medea's  story?  Did  he  know  that  not 
the  unawakening  night  but  this  brief,  garish 
day  separated  him  from  one  who  had  listened 
to  that  story  with  him  in  the  covert  of  his 
mother's  arms;  that  not  the  salt  waves  of  track- 
less seas  but  the  easy  passage  of  a  city  street 
marked  his  distance  from  a  soldier's  grave?  He 
had  blamed  death  for  his  separation  from 
Valerius.  But  what  Death  had  been  powerless 
to  accomplish  his  own  choice  of  evil  had  brought 
about.  Between  him  and  his  brother  there  now 
walked  the  Estranger — Life. 


HE  boy's  mother  let  the  book  fall, 
and,  walking  restlessly  to  the  door- 
way, flung  aside  the  curtains  that 
separated  the  library  from  the  larger 
and  open  hall.  The  December  afternoon  was 
sharp  and  cold,  and  she  had  courted  an  hour's 
forgetfulness  within  a  secluded  room,  bidding  her 
maid  bring  a  brazier  and  draw  the  curtains  close, 
and  deliberately  selecting  from  her  son's  books 
a  volume  of  Lucretius.  But  her  oblivion  had 
been  penetrated  by  an  unexpected  line,  shot  like 
a  poisoned  arrow  from  the  sober  text: — 

Breast  of  his  mother  should  pierce  with  a  wound  sem- 
piternal, unhealing. 

That  was  her  own  breast,  she  said  to  herself,  and 
there  was  no  hope  of  escape  from  the  fever  of  its 
wound.  A  curious  physical  fear  took  possession 

37 


38  Roads  from  Rome 

of  her,  parching  her  throat  and  robbing  her  of 
breath.  It  was  a  recoil  from  the  conviction  that 
she  must  continue  to  suffer  because  her  son,  so 
young  even  for  his  twenty-three  years,  had 
openly  flouted  her  for  one  of  the  harpies  of  the 
city  and  delivered  over  his  manhood  to  the 
gossip-mongers  of  Rome. 

Seeking  now  the  sting  of  the  winter  air  which 
she  had  been  avoiding,  she  pushed  the  heavy 
draperies  aside  and  hurried  into  the  atrium. 
Through  an  opening  in  the  roof  a  breath  from 
December  blew  refreshingly,  seeming  almost  to 
ruffle  the  hair  of  the  little  marble  Pan  who 
played  his  pipes  by  the  rim  of  the  basin  sunk  in 
the  centre  of  the  hall  to  catch  the  rain-water 
from  above.  She  had  taken  pains  years  ago  to 
bring  the  quaint,  goat-footed  figure  to  Rome  from 
Assisi,  because  the  laughing  face,  set  there  within 
a  bright-coloured  garden,  had  seemed  to  her  a 
happy  omen  on  the  day  when  she  came  as  a  bride 
to  her  husband's  house,  and  in  the  sullen  hours 
of  her  later  sorrow  had  comforted  her  more  than 
the  words  of  her  friends. 

As   she   saw  it  now,   exiled   and  restrained 


A  Poet's  Toll  39 

within  a  city  house,  a  new  longing  came  upon  her 
for  her  Umbrian  home.  Even  the  imperious 
winds  which  sometimes  in  the  winter  swept  up 
the  wide  valley,  and  leaped  over  the  walls  of 
Assisi  and  shrieked  in  the  streets,  were  better 
than  the  Roman  Aquilo  which  during  these  last 
days  had  been  biting  into  the  very  corners  of  the 
house.  And  how  often,  under  the  winter  sun, 
the  northern  valley  used  to  lie  quiet  and  serene, 
its  brown  vineyards  and  expectant  olive  orchards 
held  close  within  the  shelter  of  the  blue  hills 
which  stretched  protectingly  below  the  snow- 
covered  peaks  of  the  Apennines.  How  charm- 
ing, too,  the  spring  used  to  be,  when  the  vine- 
yards grew  green,  and  the  slow,  white  oxen 
brought  the  produce  of  the  plain  up  the  steep 
slopes  to  the  town. 

She  wondered  now  why,  in  leaving  Assisi 
when  Propertius  was  a  child,  she  had  not  fore- 
seen her  own  regretful  loneliness.  Her  reason 
for  leaving  had  been  the  necessity  of  educating 
her  son,  but  the  choice  had  been  made  easy  by 
the  bitterness  in  her  own  life.  Her  husband  had 
died  when  the  child  was  eight  years  old,  and  a 


40  Roads  from  Rome 

year  later  her  brother,  who  had  bulwarked  her 
against  despair,  had  been  killed  in  the  terrible 
siege  of  Perugia. 

Her  own  family  and  her  husband's  had  never 
been  friendly  to  Caesar's  successor.  Her  hus- 
band's large  estates  had  been  confiscated  when 
Octavius  came  back  from  Philippi,  and  her 
brother  had  eagerly  joined  Antony's  brother  in 
seizing  the  old  Etruscan  stronghold  across  the 
valley  from  Assisi  and  holding  it  against  the 
national  troops.  The  fierce  assaults,  the  pro- 
longed and  cruel  famine,  the  final  destruction  of 
a  prosperous  city  by  a  fire  which  alone  saved  it 
from  the  looting  of  Octavius's  soldiers,  made  a 
profound  impression  upon  all  Umbria.  Her 
own  home  seemed  to  be  physically  darkened  by 
evil  memories.  Her  mind  strayed  morbidly  in 
the  shadows,  forever  picturing  her  brother's  last 
hours  in  some  fresh  guise  of  horror.  She  re- 
covered her  self-control  only  through  the  shock 
of  discovering  that  her  trouble  was  eating  into 
her  boy's  life  also. 

He  was  a  sensitive,  shrinking  child,  easily 
irritated,  and  given  to  brooding.  One  night  she 


A  Poet's  Toll  41 

awoke  from  a  fitful  sleep  to  find  him  shivering 
by  her  bed,  his  little  pale  face  and  terrified  eyes 
defined  by  the  moonlight  that  streamed  in  from 
the  opposite  window.  It  is  my  uncle,"  he 
whispered;  "he  came  into  my  room  all  red  with 
blood;  he  wants  a  grave;  he  is  tired  of  wander- 
ing over  the  hills."  As  she  caught  the  child 
in  her  arms  her  mind  found  a  new  mooring 
in  the  determination  to  seek  freedom  for  him 
and  for  herself  from  the  memories  of  Assisi, 
where  night  brought  restless  spectres  and  day 
revealed  the  blackened  walls  and  ruins  of 
Perugia. 

That  was  fourteen  years  ago,  but  to-day  she 
knew  that  in  Rome  she  herself  had  never  wholly 
been  at  home.  Her  income  had  sufficed  for  a 
very  modest  establishment  in  the  desirable 
Esquiline  quarter;  and  her  good,  if  provincial, 
ancestry  had  placed  her  in  an  agreeable  circle 
of  friends.  She  and  her  son  had  no  entree  among 
the  greater  Roman  nobles,  but  they  had  a  claim 
on  the  acquaintance  of  several  families  connected 
with  the  government  and  through  them  she  had 
all  the  introductions  she  needed.  There  was, 


42  Roads  from  Rome 

however,  much  about  city  life  which  offended 
her  tastes.  Its  restlessness  annoyed  her,  its  in- 
difference chilled  her.  Architecture  and  sculp- 
ture failed  to  make  up  to  her  for  the  pres- 
ence of  mountain  and  valley.  Ornate  temples, 
crowded  with  fashionable  votaries,  more  often 
estranged  than  comforted  her.  Agrippa's  new 
Pantheon  was  now  the  talk  of  the  day,  but  to 
her  the  building  seemed  cold  and  formal.  And 
two  years  ago,  when  all  Rome  flocked  to  the 
dedication  of  the  new  temple  of  Apollo  on  the 
Palatine,  her  own  excitement  had  given  way  to 
tender  memories  of  the  dedication  of  Minerva's 
temple  in  her  old  home.  Inside  the  spacious 
Roman  portico,  with  its  columns  of  African  mar- 
ble and  its  wonderful  images  of  beasts  and  mor- 
tals and  gods,  and  in  front  of  the  gleaming 
temple,  with  its  doors  of  carven  ivory  and  the 
sun's  chariot  poised  above  its  gable  peak,  she 
had  been  conscious  chiefly  of  a  longing  to  see 
once  more  the  homely  market-place  of  Assisi, 
to  climb  the  high  steps  to  the  exquisite  temple- 
porch  which  faced  southward  toward  the  sun- 
bathed valley,  and  then  to  seek  the  cool  dimness 


A  Poet's  Toll  43 

within,  where  the  Guardian  of  Woman's  Work 
stood  ready  to  hear  her  prayers. 

To-day  as  she  walked  feverishly  up  and  down, 
fretted  by  the  walls  of  her  Roman  house,  her 
homesickness  grew  into  a  violent  desire  for  the 
old  life.  Perugia  was  rebuilt,  and  rehabilitated, 
in  spite  of  the  conquering  name  of  Augustus 
superimposed  upon  its  most  ancient  Etruscan 
portal.  Assisi  was  plying  a  busy  and  happy  life 
on  the  opposite  hillside.  The  intervening  valley, 
once  cowering  under  the  flail  of  war,  was  given 
over  now  to  plenty  and  to  peace.  Its  beauty,  as 
she  had  seen  it  last,  recurred  to  her  vividly.  She 
had  left  home  in  the  early  morning.  The  sky 
still  held  the  flush  of  dawn,  and  the  white  mists 
were  just  rising  from  the  valley  and  floating  away 
over  the  tops  of  the  awakening  hills.  She  had 
held  her  child  close  to  her  side  as  the  carriage 
passed  out  under  the  gate  of  the  town  and  began 
the  descent  into  the  plain,  and  the  buoyant  fresh- 
ness of  the  morning  had  entered  into  her  heart 
and  given  her  hope  for  the  boy's  future.  He  was 
to  grow  strong  and  wise,  his  childish  impetuosity 
was  to  be  disciplined,  he  was  to  study  and  become 


44  Roads  from  Rome 

a  lawyer  and  serve  his  country  as  his  ancestors 
had  before  him.  His  father's  broken  youth 
was  to  continue  in  him,  and  her  life  was  to 
fructify  in  his  and  in  his  children's,  when  the 
time  came. 

The  mother  bowed  her  head  upon  her  clenched 
hands.  How  empty,  empty  her  hopes  had  been! 
Even  his  boyhood  had  disappointed  her,  in  spite 
of  his  cleverness  at  his  books.  The  irritability  of 
his  childhood  had  become  moroseness,  and  he 
had  alienated  more  often  than  he  had  attached 
his  friends.  A  certain  passionate  sincerity,  how- 
ever, had  never  been  lacking  in  his  worst  moods; 
and  toward  her  he  had  been  a  loyal,  if  often  heed- 
less, son.  In  this  loyalty,  as  the  years  passed, 
she  had  come  to  place  her  last  hope  that  he  would 
be  deaf  to  the  siren  calls  of  the  great  city.  Out- 
door sports  and  wholesome  friendships  he  had 
rejected,  even  while  his  solitary  nature  and  high- 
strung  temperament  made  some  defense  against 
temptation  imperative. 

When  he  was  eighteen  he  refused  to  go  into 
law,  and  declared  for  a  literary  life.  She  had 
tried  hard  to  conceal  her  disappointment  and 


A  Poet's  Toll  45 

timid  chagrin.  She  realised  that  the  literary 
circle  in  Rome  was  quite  different  from  any  she 
knew.  It  was  no  more  aristocratic  than  her  own, 
and  yet  she  felt  intuitively  that  its  standards 
were  even  more  fastidious  and  its  judgments 
more  scornful.  If  Proper tius  were  to  grow  rich 
and  powerful,  as  the  great  Cicero  had,  and  win 
the  friendship  of  the  old  senatorial  families,  she 
could  more  easily  adjust  herself  to  formal  inter- 
course with  them  than  to  meeting  on  equal  terms 
such  men  as  Tibullus  and  Ponticus  and  Bassus, 
and  perhaps  even  Horace  and  Virgil.  But  later 
her  sensitive  fear  that  she  could  not  help  her  son 
in  his  new  career  had  been  swallowed  up  in  the 
anguish  of  learning  that  he  had  entirely  surren- 
dered himself  to  a  woman  of  the  town.  This 
woman,  she  had  been  told,  was  much  older  than 
Propertius,  beautiful  and  accomplished,  and  the 
lure  of  many  rich  and  distinguished  lovers.  Why 
should  she  seek  out  a  slight,  pale  boy  who  had 
little  to  give  her  except  a  heart  too  honest  for 
her  to  understand? 

When  the  knowledge  first  came  to  her,  she  had 
begged  for  her  son's  confidence,  until,  in  one  of 


46  Roads  from  Rome 

his  morose  moods,  he  had  flung  away  from  her, 
leaving  her  to  the  weary  alternations  of  hope  and 
fear.  Two  weeks  ago,  however,  all  uncertainty 
had  ended.  The  sword  had  fallen.  Propertius 
had  published  a  series  of  poems  boasting  of  his 
love,  scorning  all  the  ideals  of  courage  and  man- 
hood in  which  she  had  tried  to  nurture  him,  ex- 
hibiting to  Rome  in  unashamed  nakedness  the 
spectacle  of  his  defeated  youth.  Since  the  day 
when  her  slave  had  brought  home  the  volume 
from  the  book-store  and  she  had  read  it  at  night 
in  the  privacy  of  her  bedroom,  she  had  found  no 
words  in  which  to  speak  to  him  about  his  poetry. 
Any  hope  that  she  had  ever  had  of  again  appeal- 
ing to  him  died  before  his  cruel  lines: — 

Never  be  dearer  to  me  even  love  of  a  mother  beloved, 

Never  an  interest  in  life  dear,  if  of  thee  I'm  bereft. 
Thou  and  thou  only  to  me  art  my  home,  to  me,  Cynthia, 

only 

Father  and  mother  art  thou — thou  all  my  moments  of 
joy. 

He  had,  indeed,  been  affectionate  toward  her 
once  more,  and  had  made  a  point  of  telling  her 
things  that  he  thought  would  please  her.  He 


A  Poet's  Toll  47 

had  even,  some  days  before,  seemed  boyishly 
eager  for  her  sympathetic  pleasure  in  an  invita- 
tion to  dine  with  Maecenas. 

"I  am  made,  mother,"  he  said,  "if  he  takes 
me  up." 

"Made!"  she  repeated  now  to  herself.  Made 
into  what? 

A  friend  had  told  her  that  the  Forum  was  ring- 
ing with  the  fame  of  this  new  writer,  and  that 
from  the  Palatine  to  the  Subura  his  poetry  was 
taking  like  wildfire.  She  was  dumb  before  such 
strange  comfort.  What  was  this  "fame"  to 
which  men  were  willing  to  sacrifice  their  citizen- 
ship? Nothing  in  Rome  had  so  shocked  her  as 
the  laxity  of  family  life,  the  reluctance  of  young 
men  to  marry,  the  frequency  of  divorce.  She 
had  felt  her  first  sympathy  with  Augustus  when 
he  had  endeavoured  to  force  through  a  law  com- 
pelling honourable  marriage.  Now,  all  that  was 
best  in  her,  all  her  loyalty  to  the  traditions  of  her 
family,  rose  in  revolt  against  a  popular  favour 
which  applauded  the  rhymes  of  a  ruined  boy 
and  admired  the  shameless  revelations  of  de- 
bauchery. 


48  Roads  from  Rome 

These  plain  words,  spoken  to  herself,  acted 
upon  her  mind  like  a  tonic.  In  facing  the  facts  at 
their  worst,  she  gained  courage  to  believe  that 
there  must  still  be  something  she  could  do,  if  she 
could  only  grow  calmer  and  think  more  clearly. 
She  stopped  her  restless  walking,  and,  taking  a 
chair,  forced  herself  to  lean  back  and  rest.  The 
afternoon  was  growing  dark,  and  a  servant  was 
beginning  to  light  the  lamps.  In  the  glow  of  the 
little  yellow  flames  Pan  seemed  to  be  piping  a 
jocund  melody. 

The  frenzy  of  despair  left  her,  and  she  began  to 
remember  her  son's  youth  and  the  charming,  boy- 
ish things  about  him.  Perhaps  among  his  new 
friends  some  would  love  him  and  help  him  where 
she  and  his  earlier  friends  had  failed.  There  was 
Virgil,  for  example.  He  was  older,  but  Proper- 
tius's  enthusiasm  for  him  seemed  unbounded. 
He  had  pored  over  the  Georgics  when  they  came 
out,  and  only  the  other  day  he  had  told  her  that 
the  poet  was  at  work  on  an  epic  that  would  be 
greater  than  the  Iliad.  The  boy's  likes  and  dis- 
likes were  always  violent,  and  he  had  said  once, 
in  his  absurd  way,  that  he  would  rather  eat 


A  Poet's  Toll  49 

crumbs  from  Virgil's  table  than  loaves  from 
Horace's. 

She  knew  that  Virgil  believed  in  noble  things, 
and  she  had  heard  that  he  was  kind  and  full  of 
sympathy.  As  the  son  of  a  peasant  he  did  not 
seem  too  imposing  to  her.  He  had  been  pointed 
out  to  her  one  day  in  the  street,  and  the  memory 
of  his  shy  bearing  and  of  the  embarrassed  flush 
on  his  face  as  he  saw  himself  the  object  of  in- 
terest, now  gave  her  courage  to  think  of  appeal- 
ing to  him. 

Her  loosened  thoughts  hurried  on  more  am- 
bitiously still.  Of  Maecenas's  recent  kindness 
Propertius  was  inordinately  proud.  Would  it 
not  be  possible  to  reach  the  great  man  through 
Tullus,  her  son's  faithful  friend,  whose  govern- 
ment position  gave  him  a  claim  upon  the  prime 
minister's  attention?  Surely,  if  the  older  man 
realised  how  fast  the  boy  was  throwing  his  life 
away  he  would  put  out  a  restraining  hand.  She 
had  always  understood  that  he  set  great  store 
by  Roman  morals.  Rising  from  her  chair  with 
fresh  energy,  she  bade  a  servant  bring  her  writ- 
ing materials  to  the  library.  The  swift  Roman 


50  Roads  from  Rome 

* 

night  had  fallen,  and  the  house  looked  dull  and 
dim  except  within  the  short  radius  of  each 
lamp.  But  to  her  it  seemed  lit  by  a  new  and 
saving  hope. 

n 

Nearly  a  week  later  Horace  was  dining  quietly 
with  Maecenas.  It  was  during  one  of  the  frequent 
estrangements  between  the  prime  minister  and 
his  wife,  and  Maecenas  often  sent  for  Horace 
when  the  strain  of  work  had  left  him  with  little 
inclination  to  collect  a  larger  company.  The 
meal  was  over,  and  on  the  polished  citron-wood 
table  stood  a  silver  mixing-bowl,  and  an  hospi- 
table array — after  the  princely  manner  of  the 
house — of  gold  cups,  crystal  flagons,  and  tall, 
slender  glasses  which  looked  as  if  they  might 
have  been  cut  out  of  deep-hued  amethyst.  The 
slaves  had  withdrawn,  as  it  was  one  of  the  first 
nights  of  the  Saturnalia  and  their  duties  were 
lightened  by  a  considerate  master.  The  unusual 
cold  and  the  savage  winds  that  had  held  Rome 
in  their  grip  for  the  past  few  days  were  forgotten 
within  the  beautiful  dining-room.  A  multitude 


A  Poet's  Toll  51 

of  lamps,  hanging  from  the  lacquered  ceiling, 
standing  around  the  room  on  tall  ^Eginetan  can- 
delabra, and  resting  on  low,  graceful  standards 
on  the  table  itself,  threw  a  warm  radiance  over 
the  mosaic  floor  and  over  the  walls  painted  with 
architectural  designs,  through  which,  as  if 
through  colonnades  of  real  marble,  charming 
landscapes  lured  and  beckoned.  One  of  the 
choicest  Greek  wines  in  the  host's  famous  cellar 
had  been  brought  in  for  the  friends.  There  was 
enough  snow  on  Soracte,  Maecenas  had  said 
laughingly,  to  justify  the  oldest  Chian,  if  Horace 
could  forego  his  Italian  numbers  and  his  home- 
brewed Sabine  for  one  night. 

"I  will  leave  both  my  metre  and  my  stomach 
to  the  gods,"  Horace  had  retorted,  "if  you  will 
turn  over  to  them  your  worry  about  Rome,  and 
pluck  the  blossom  of  the  hour  with  me.  Augus- 
tus is  safe  in  Spain,  you  cannot  be  summoned  to 
the  Palatine,  and  to-morrow  is  early  enough  for 
the  noise  of  the  Forum.  By  the  way,"  he  added 
somewhat  testily  and  unexpectedly,  "I  wish  I 
could  ever  get  to  your  house  without  being  held 
up  for  'news.'  A  perfect  stranger — he  pre- 


52  Roads  from  Rome 

tended  to  know  me — stopped  me  to-night  and 
asked  me  if  I  thought  there  was  anything  in  the 
rumour  that  Augustus  has  no  intention  of  going 
to  get  the  standards  back  from  the  Parthians, 
but  is  thinking  only  of  the  Spanish  gold-mines. 
'Does  he  think  to  wing  our  Roman  eagles  with 
money  or  with  glory?'  he  asked,  with  what  I 
thought  was  an  insolent  sneer.  I  shook  him  off, 
but  it  left  a  bad  taste  in  my  mouth.  However," 
smiling  again  as  he  saw  a  familiar  impassiveness 
settle  upon  his  host's  face,  "for  you  to-night 
there  shall  be  neither  Parthians  nor  budgets.  I 
offer  myself  as  the  victim  of  your  thoughts.  You 
may  even  ask  me  why  I  have  not  published  my 
odes  since  you  last  saw  me." 

Maecenas's  eyes  brightened  with  affectionate 
amusement. 

"Well,  my  friend,"  he  said,  "both  money  and 
glory  would  wing  your  flight.  You  have  the 
public  ear  already,  and  can  fix  your  own  royalties 
with  the  Sosii.  And  everybody,  from  Augustus 
to  the  capricious  fair,  would  welcome  the  pub- 
lished volume.  You  should  think  too  of  my  repu- 
tation as  showman.  Messala  told  me  last  week 


A  Poets  Toll  53 

that  he  had  persuaded  Tibullus  to  bring  out  a 
book  of  verse  immediately,  while  you  and  Virgil 
are  dallying  between  past  and  future  triumphs. 
I  am  tempted  to  drop  you  both  and  take  up  with 
ambitious  youth.  Here  is  Propertius  setting  the 
town  agog,  and  yesterday  the  Sosii  told  me  of 
another  clever  boy,  the  young  Ovid,  who  is  al- 
ready writing  verse  at  seventeen:  a  veritable 
rascal,  they  say,  for  wit  and  wickedness,  but  a 
born  poet." 

"  If  he  is  that,"  Horace  said,  in  a  tone  of  irri- 
tation very  unusual  with  him,  "you  had  better 
substitute  him  for  your  Propertius.  I  think  his 
success  is  little  short  of  scandalous." 

"You  sound  like  Tullus,"  Maecenas  said  ban- 
teringly,  "or  like  the  friend  of  Virgil's  father  who 
arrived  from  Mantua  last  week  and  began  to  look 
for  the  good  old  Tatii  and  Sabines  in  Pompey's 
Portico  and  the  Temple  of  Isis!  Since  when 
have  you  turned  Cato?  " 

Horace  laughed  good-humouredly  again.  "At 
any  rate,"  he  said,  "you  might  have  done  worse 
by  me  than  likening  me  to  Tullus.  I  sometimes 
wish  we  were  all  like  him,  unplagued  by  imagi- 


54  Roads  from  Rome 

nation,  innocent  of  Greek,  quite  sure  of  the  ad- 
mirableness  of  admirably  administering  the  gov- 
ernment, and  of  the  rightness  of  everything 
Roman.  What  does  he  think  of  Propertius's 
peccadilloes,  by  the  way?  He  is  a  friend  of  the 
family,  is  he  not?" 

"Yes,"  said  Maecenas,  "and  he  is  doing  his 
friendly  duty  with  the  dogged  persistence  you 
would  expect.  He  has  haunted  me  in  the  Forum 
lately,  and  yesterday  we  had  a  long  talk.  His 
point  of  view  is  obvious.  A  Roman  ought  to  be 
a  soldier,  and  he  ought  to  marry  and  beget  more 
soldiers.  Propertius  boasts  of  being  deaf  to  the 
trumpet  if  a  woman  weeps,  and  the  woman  is  one 
he  cannot  marry.  Ergo,  Propertius  is  a  disgrace 
to  his  country.  It  is  as  clear  as  Euclid.  All  the 
friends  of  the  family,  it  seems,  have  taken  a  hand 
in  the  matter.  Tullus  himself  has  tried  to  make 
the  boy  ambitious  to  go  to  Athens,  Bassus  has 
tried  to  discount  the  lady's  charms,  Lynceus  has 
urged  the  pleasures  of  philosophy,  and  Ponticus 
of  writing  epics.  And  various  grey-beards  have 
done  their  best  to  make  a  love-sick  poet  pay 
court  to  wisdom.  I  could  scarcely  keep  from 


A  Poet's  Toll  55 

laughing  at  the  look  of  perplexity  and  indigna- 
tion in  Tullus's  face  when  he  quoted  Propertius's 
reply.  The  boy  actually  asked  them  if  they 
thought  the  poor  flute  ought  to  be  set  adrift  just 
because  swelled  cheeks  weren't  becoming  to  Pal- 
las! The  long  and  short  of  it  is  that  he  wants 
me  to  interfere  and  convince  Propertius  of  his 
public  duty.  That  public  duty  may  conceivably 
take  the  form  of  writing  poetry  is  beyond  his 
grasp." 

Horace  laughed.  "Now,  my  difficulty,"  he 
said,  "is  just  the  reverse.  I  object  to  this  young 
man  because  he  is  a  bad  poet." 

"Why?"  Maecenas  asked,  rather  abruptly. 

"Because,"  Horace  answered,  "he  contorts 
the  Latin  language  and  muddies  his  thought  by 
Alexandrian  debris." 

Maecenas  reached  for  the  silver  ladle  and 
slowly  filled  his  cup  once  more  from  the  mixing- 
bowl  before  replying.  Then  he  said  in  a  more 
serious  tone  than  he  had  used  hitherto: — 

"If  you  will  allow  me  to  say  so,  Flaccus,  that 
is  a  cheap  criticism  to  come  from  the  keenest 
critic  in  Rome.  Is  it  not  possible  that  you  are 


56  Roads  from  Rome 

misled  by  your  personal  prejudices?  You  dislike 
the  young  man  himself,  I  know,  because  he  is 
moody  and  emotional  and  uncontrolled,  and 
because  he  considers  his  own  emotions  fit  sub- 
jects for  discussion.  A  boy,  self-centred,  mel- 
ancholy, and  in  love — what  do  you  want  of 
him?" 

"Is  that  quite  fair?"  Horace  answered. 
"Tibullus  is  young  and  in  love,  and  a  very 
Heracleitus  for  melancholy,  and  you  know 
that  I  not  only  love  him  as  a  friend  but  also 
value  him  as  a  poet,  in  spite  of  my  belief  that 
elegiac  verse  is  not  a  fortunate  medium  for 
our  language.  His  Latin  is  limpid  and  direct, 
his  metre  is  finished,  and  his  emotion  as  a  lover 
is  properly  subordinated  to  his  work  as  a 
poet." 

"Ah,"  said  Maecenas  quickly,  "but  just  there 
you  betray  yourself."  He  hesitated  a  moment 
and  then  went  on  as  if  the  words  were  welling 
up  from  reluctant  depths  in  his  own  experience. 
"Flaccus,  you  have  never  loved  a  woman,  have 
you?" 

Horace  smiled  whimsically.     "Not   to  the 


A  Poet's  Toll  57 

extent  of  surrendering  my  standards,"  he  said. 
"So  far  Mercury  has  always  rescued  me  in  time 
from  both  Mars  and  Venus." 

But  Maecenas  went  on  gravely,  "You  are, 
then,  incapacitated  for  appreciating  the  force  and 
fervour  of  a  certain  kind  of  genius.  I  know  that 
you  have  never  understood  Catullus,  and  I  have 
a  feeling  that  something  of  his  spirit  is  reappear- 
ing in  this  boy  to-day.  If  Propertius  lacks  his 
virility  and  directness,  that  may  well  be  because 
of  a  heart  in  which  there  is  a  stormier  conflict 
of  emotions.  Certainly  his  passion  transcends 
the  vivacious  sentiment  of  poor  Gallus.  I 
tell  you,  my  wary  critic,  I  am  almost  willing 
to  believe  that  through  this  silly  young  dandy 
we  are  getting  a  new  voice  in  our  literature.  Who 
knows?  who  knows?  It  is  un-Roman,  yes,  in- 
coherent and  moody  and  subversive  of  law  and 
order,  but  is  it  false  to  human  life?  A  man  may 
choose  to  dwell  apart  with  his  own  heart  rather 
than  with  Lucretius's  science  or  Virgil's  nature, 
or  your  own  practical  philosophy.  Certain  lines 
that  this  boy  has  written  haunt  me — perhaps 
they  will  prove  true: — 


58  Roads  from  Rome 

Then  you  will  wonder,  and  often,  at  me  not  ignoble  a 

poet; 
Then  midst  the  talent  of  Rome  I  shall  be  ranked  in  the 

van; 
Then  will  the  youths  break  silence  by  side  of  my  grave 

and  be  saying: 

'Dead!   Thou  of  passion  our  lord!    Great  one,  O  poet, 
laid  low!'" 

A  silence  fell  between  the  friends.  Two 
slaves,  their  faces  flushed  with  unusual  wine, 
came  hi  to  replenish  the  small  lamps  on  the 
table,  and  stole  quietly  out  again.  Horace 
watched  his  friend  with  grave  affection,  knowing 
well  where  his  thoughts  had  strayed.  Presently 
Maecenas  shook  himself  with  a  laugh. 

"Exit  Terentia's  husband,"  he  said,  "and 
reenter  the  galley-slave  of  the  Roman  State.  I 
have,  indeed,  been  thinking  for  some  time  that 
this  new  talent  ought  to  be  deflected  into  other 
lines.  Its  energy  would  put  vitality  into  na- 
tional themes.  A  little  less  Cynthia  and  a  little 
more  Caesar  will  please  us  all.  I  mean  to  suggest 
some  historical  subjects  to  the  boy.  Thinking 
about  them  may  stiffen  up  this  oversoft  Muse  of 
his." 


A  Poet's  Toll  59 

"You  speak  hopefully,"  Horace  said,  "but 
you  have  our  Hostia  (I  understand  the  '  Cynthia ' 
is  an  open  secret)  to  reckon  with.  She  is  not 
going  to  loosen  her  hold  on  a  young  man  who 
is  making  her  famous,  and  whose  sudden  success 
with  you  is  due  to  poetry  about  her.  We  have 
to  acknowledge  that  she  is  almost  as  wonderful 
as  the  young  fool  thinks  she  is." 

"Certainly,"  Maecenas  answered,  "she  has 
insight.  Her  favour  must  have  been  won  by  his 
talent,  for  he  hasn't  money  enough  to  meet  her 
price." 

"And  I,"  scoffed  Horace,  "think  the  dice 
about  equal  between  her  favour  and  his  talent. 
However,  I  wish  you  luck,  and  shall  look  for  a 
crop  of  songs  on  Caesar  and  Carthage  and  the 
Cimbrians." 

With  a  smile  of  mutual  understanding  the 
friends  pledged  each  other  in  one  last  draught 
of  Chian,  as  Horace  rose  to  take  his  leave. 

"How  lately  have  you  heard  from  Virgil?" 
Maecenas  asked  while  they  waited  for  Davus  to 
be  summoned  from  the  festivities  in  the  serv- 
ants' hall. 


60  Roads  from  Rome 

"A  letter  came  yesterday,"  Horace  answered, 
"and  it  troubled  me  greatly.  He  wrote  in  one 
of  his  blackest  moods  of  despair  over  the  jEneid. 
He  says  he  feels  as  if  he  were  caught  in  a  night- 
mare, trying  madly  to  march  along  a  road,  while 
his  feet  drag  heavily,  and  his  tongue  refuses  to 
form  sounds  and  words.  I  confess  that  I  am 
anxious,  for  I  think  his  mind  may  prey  too  far 
upon  his  physical  strength.  Only  last  week 
Varius  told  me  that  he  thinks  Virgil  himself 
is  obsessed  by  the  idea  that  he  may  die  before 
he  has  finished  his  work,  he  has  begged  him  so 
often  to  promise  to  destroy  whatever  is  left  un- 
completed." 

A  sudden  sadness,  like  the  shadow  of  familiar 
pain,  fell  upon  Maecenas's  face. 

"Flaccus,  my  Flaccus,"  he  exclaimed,  "it  is 
I  who  shall  die,  die  before  Virgil  finishes  his 
^Eneid,  or  you  your  Odes.  My  life  will  have  been 
futile.  The  Romans  do  not  understand.  They 
want  their  standards  back  from  the  Parthians, 
they  want  the  mines  of  Spain  and  the  riches  of 
Arabia.  They  cast  greedy  eyes  on  Britain  and 
make  much  ado  about  ruling  Gaul  and  Asia  and 


A  Poet's  Toll  61 

Greece  and  Egypt.  And  they  think  that  I  am 
one  of  them.  But  the  Etruscan  ghosts  within 
me  stir  strangely  at  times,  and  walk  abroad 
through  the  citadel  of  my  soul.  Then  I  know 
that  the  idlest  dream  of  a  dreamer  may  have 
form  when  our  civilisation  shall  have  crumbled, 
and  that  the  verse  of  a  poet,  even  of  this  boy 
Propertius,  will  outlast  the  toil  of  my  nights. 
You  and  Virgil  often  tell  me  that  you  owe  your 
fortunes  to  me, — your  lives,  you  sometimes  say 
with  generous  exaggeration.  But  I  tell  you  that 
the  day  is  coming  when  I  shall  owe  my  life  to 
you,  when,  save  for  you,  I  shall  be  a  mere  name 
in  the  rotting  archives  of  a  forgotten  state. 
Why,  then,  do  you  delay  to  fulfill  my  hope? 
Virgil  at  least  is  working.  What  are  you  doing, 
my  best  of  friends?" 

Davus  had  come  in,  and  was  laying  the  soft, 
thick  folds  of  a  long  coat  over  his  master's 
shoulders,  as  Maecenas's  almost  fretful  appeal 
came  to  an  end. 

Horace,  accustomed  to  his  friend's  over- 
strained moods,  and  understanding  the  cure  for 
them,  turned  toward  him  with  a  gentle  respect 


62  Roads  from  Rome 

which  was  free  from  all  constraint  or  apology. 
His  voice  lost  its  frequent  note  of  good-tempered 
mockery  and  became  warm  with  feeling,  as  he 
answered : — 

"My  friend,  have  patience.  You  will  not  die, 
nor  shall  I,  until  I  have  laid  before  you  a  work 
worthy  of  your  friendship.  You  are  indeed  the 
honour  and  the  glory  of  my  life,  and  your  faith  in 
my  lyric  gift  lifts  me  to  the  stars.  But  you  must 
remember  that  my  Muse  is  wayward  and  my 
vein  of  genius  not  too  rich.  No  Hercules  will 
reward  my  travail,  so  do  not  expect  of  me  the 
birth-pangs  that  are  torturing  Virgil.  I  have 
time  to  look  abroad  on  life  and  to  correct  tears 
by  wine  and  laughter  while  my  hands  are  busy 
with  the  file  and  pumice-stone.  Before  you 
know  it,  the  billboards  of  the  Sosii  will  announce 
the  completed  work,  and  the  dedication  shall 
show  Rome  who  is  responsible  for  my  offend- 
ing." 

The  look  of  anxious  irritability  faded  from 
Maecenas's  face,  and  in  restored  serenity  he 
walked  with  Horace  from  the  dining-room, 
through  the  spacious,  unroofed  peristyle,  where 


A  Poet's  Toll  63 

marble  pillars  and  statues,  flower-beds  and  foun- 
tains were  blanched  by  the  winter  moon  to  one 
tone  of  silver,  and  through  the  magnificent 
atrium,  where  the  images  of  noble  ancestors 
kept  their  silent  watch  over  the  new  generation. 
At  the  vestibule  door  a  porter,  somewhat  be- 
fuddled by  Saturnalian  merry-making,  was 
waiting  sleepily.  When  he  had  opened  the  door 
into  the  street  the  two  friends  stood  silent  a 
moment  in  the  outer  portico,  suddenly  conscious, 
after  the  seclusion  of  the  great  house  and  their 
evening's  talk,  of  the  city  life  beyond, — hilarious, 
disordered,  without  subtlety  in  desire  and  regret, 
rich  in  the  common  passions  of  humanity.  At 
this  moment  a  troop  of  revelers  stumbled  past 
with  wagging  torches  in  their  drunken  hands. 
Among  them,  conspicuous  in  the  moonlight,  the 
boy  Propertius  swayed  unsteadily,  and  pushed 
back  a  torn  garland  from  his  forehead.  Horace 
turned  to  Maecenas. 

"Cynthia's  wine,"  he  said.  "Do  you  expect 
to  extract  from  the  lees  an  ode  to  Augustus?  " 

Maecenas  shrugged  his  shoulders.  "Prob- 
ably," he  said,  "he  will  write  me  a  charming 


64  Roads  from  Rome 

poem  to  explain  why  he  cannot  do  what  I  ask. 
I  know  the  tricks  of  your  tribe." 

With  a  final  laugh  and  a  clasp  of  the  hands 
the  friends  parted  company.  Maecenas  went 
back  to  his  library  to  reread  dispatches  from 
Spain  before  seeking  his  few  hours  of  sleep. 
Horace,  finding  that  the  wind  had  gone  down, 
and  tempted  by  the  moonlight,  turned  toward 
the  Subura  to  stroll  for  another  hour  among 
the  Saturnalian  crowds. 


m 

Propertius  made  his  way  past  the  slave  at  his 
own  door,  who  was  surprised  only  by  his  young 
master's  arrival  before  daybreak,  and  stumbled 
to  his  bedroom,  where  the  night-lamp  was  burn- 
ing. The  drinking  at  Cynthia's — he  always 
thought  of  her  by  that  name — had  been  fast 
and  furious.  She  had  been  more  beautiful  than 
he  had  ever  seen  her.  Her  eyes  had  shone  like 
stars,  and  the  garlands  had  hung  down  over  her 
face  and  trailed  in  her  cup  of  yellow  wine.  And 
she  had  told  him  that  he  was  the  only  true  poet 


A  Poet's  Toll  65 

in  Rome,  and  had  read  his  poems  aloud  in  a  voice 
so  sweet  and  clear  that  he  had  been  nearly 
crazed  with  pride  and  delight.  Capriciously  she 
had  driven  him  away  early  with  the  other  guests, 
but  to-morrow  he  would  see  her  again,  or,  per- 
haps, he  could  get  through  her  door  again  to- 
night— to-night — 

His  feverish  reverie  was  broken  in  upon  by  the 
frightened  and  apologetic  porter,  bringing  a 
letter  which  his  mistress  had  told  him  to  deliver 
as  soon  as  the  master  came  home.  Propertius 
dismissed  him  angrily,  and  held  the  letter  in  an 
unwilling  and  shaking  hand.  Perhaps  he  would 
not  have  read  it  at  all  if  it  had  been  written  on  an 
ordinary  wax  tablet.  But  the  little  parchment 
roll  had  an  unusual  and  insistent  look  about  it, 
and  he  finally  unrolled  it  and,  holding  it  out  as 
steadily  as  he  could  under  the  small  wick  of  his 
lamp,  read  what  was  written: — 

"P.  Virgilius  Maro  to  his  Propertius,  greeting. 

I  hope  you  will  allow  me  to  congratulate  you 
on  your  recent  volume  of  verse.  Your  manage- 
ment of  the  elegiac  metre,  which  my  friend 


66  Roads  from  Rome 

Gallus,  before  his  tragic  death,  taught  me  to 
understand,  seems  to  me  ennobling  and  enrich- 
ing, and  in  both  the  fire  and  the  pathos  of  many 
of  your  lines  I  recognise  the  true  poet.  Perhaps 
you  will  recognise  the  rustic  in  me  when  I  add 
that  I  also  welcomed  a  note  of  love  for  your 
Umbrian  groves  of  beeches  and  pines  and  for 
water-meadows  which  you  must  have  seen,  per- 
haps by  the  banks  of  your  Clitumnus,  filled  with 
white  lilies  and  scarlet  poppies.  Most  of  all 
have  I  been  moved  by  the  candour  of  your 
idealism.  It  is  rare  indeed  in  this  age  to  hear  any 
scorn  of  the  golden  streams  of  Pactolus  and  the 
jewels  of  the  Red  Sea,  of  pictured  tapestries  and 
thresholds  of  Arabian  onyx.  The  knowledge 
that  things  like  these  are  as  nothing  to  you,  com- 
pared with  love,  stirs  me  to  gratitude. 

"It  was  in  these  ways  that  I  was  thinking  of 
you  yesterday,  when  I  put  my  own  work  aside 
and  walked  by  the  shore  of  the  great  bay  here, 
looking  toward  Capri.  And  will  you  let  a  man 
who  has  lived  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century 
longer  than  you  have  add  that  I  wondered  also 
whether  before  long  you  will  not  seek  another 


A  Poet's  Toll  67 

mistress  for  your  worship,  one  whose  service 
shall  transcend  not  only  riches  but  all  per- 
sonal passions? 

"Like  you,  I  have  lain  by  the  Tiber,  and 
watched  the  skiffs  hurrying  by,  and  the  slow 
barges  towed  along  the  yellow  waves.  And  my 
thoughts  also  have  been  of  the  meanness  of 
wealth  and  of  the  glory  of  love.  But  it  was  to 
Rome  herself  that  I  made  my  vows,  and  in  whose 
service  I  enlisted.  Was  there  ever  a  time  when 
she  needed  more  the  loyalty  of  us  all?  While 
she  is  fashioning  that  Empire  which  shall  be 
without  limit  or  end  and  raise  us  to  the  lordship 
of  the  earth,  she  runs  the  risks  of  attack  from  im- 
palpable enemies  who  shall  defile  her  highways 
and  debauch  her  sons.  Arrogance,  luxury,  vio- 
lent ambition,  false  Desires,  are  more  to  be 
dreaded  than  a  Parthian  victory.  The  subtle 
wickedness  of  the  Orient  may  conquer  us  when 
the  spears  of  Britain  are  of  no  avail.  Antony 
and  Gallus  are  not  the  only  Romans  from  whom 
Egypt  has  sucked  life  and  honour. 

"Like  you,  again,  I  am  no  soldier.  Your 
friends  and  my  friends  go  lustily  to  Ionia  and 


68  Roads  from  Rome 

Lydia  and  Gaul  and  Spain,  co-workers,  as  you  say, 
in  a  beloved  government.  Is  not  Rome,  then,  all 
the  more  left  to  our  defence?  You  pleased  me 
once  by  saying  that  you  'knew  every  line'  of 
my  Georgics.  You  know,  then,  that  I  have  be- 
lieved that  the  sickened  minds  of  to-day  could  be 
healed,  if  men  would  but  return  to  the  intimacies 
of  the  soil  and  farm.  Our  great  master,  Lucre- 
tius, preached  salvation  through  knowledge  of 
the  physical  world.  I  have  ventured  to  say  that 
it  could  be  found  through  the  kindly  help  of  the 
country  gods.  But  now  I  am  beginning  to  see 
deeper.  In  Rome  herself  lie  the  seeds  of  a  new 
birth.  When  men  see  her  as  she  is  in  her  ancient 
greatness  and  her  immortal  future,  will  not  greed 
and  lust  depart  from  their  hearts?  I  think  it 
must  have  been  at  dawn,  when  the  sea  was  first 
reddening  under  the  early  sun,  that  y£neas  sailed 
up  to  the  mouth  of  the  Tiber,  and  found  at  last 
the  heart  of  that  Hesperia  whose  shores  had 
seemed  ever  to  recede  as  he  drew  near  them. 
Now  that  our  sky  is  blazing  with  the  midday  sun, 
shall  we  betray  and  make  void  those  early  hopes? 
Shall  the  sistrum  of  Isis  drown  our  prayers  to  the 


A  Poet's  Toll  69 

gods  of  our  country,  native-born,  who  guard  the 
Tiber  and  our  Roman  Palatine? 

"I  am  seeking  to  write  a  poem  which  shall 
make  men  reverence  their  past  and  build  for  their 
future.  Will  you  not  help  me  to  work  for  Rome's 
need?  You  have  sincerity,  passion,  talent.  You 
have  commended  a  beautiful  woman  to  me. 
Will  you  not  let  me  commend  my  Mistress  to 
you?  Farewell. " 

The  letter  slipped  from  the  boy's  fingers  to 
the  floor.  The  wonderful  voice  of  Virgil,  which 
made  men  forget  his  slight  frame  and  awkward 
manners,  seemed  to  echo  in  his  ears.  In  that 
voice  he  had  heard  stately  hexameters  read  until, 
shutting  his  eyes,  he  could  have  believed  Apollo 
spoke  from  cloudy  Olympus.  And  this  voice 
condescended  now  to  plead  with  him  and  to  offer 
him  a  new  love.  Cynthia's  voice  or  his — or  his. 
He  tried  to  distinguish  each  in  his  clouded 
memory — -Virgil's  praising  Rome,  Cynthia's 
praising  himself.  His  head  ached  violently,  and 
his  ears  rang.  A  blind  rage  seized  him  because 
he  could  not  distinguish  either  voice  clearly. 


70  Roads  from  Rome 

The  letter  was  to  blame.  He  would  destroy 
that,  and  one  voice  at  least  would  cease  its  tor- 
ment. He  gathered  up  the  loose  roll,  twisted  it 
in  his  trembling  fingers,  and  held  it  to  the  flame 
of  the  little  lamp. 

"To  Venus — a  hecatomb!"  he  shouted  wildly. 

As  the  parchment  caught  fire,  the  blaze  of 
light  illumined  his  flushed  cheeks  and  burning 
eyes,  and  the  boyish  curve  of  his  sullen  lips. 

It  was  in  the  spring,  when  the  little  marble 
Pan  looked  rosy  in  the  warmer  sunlight,  and  the 
white  oxen  must  have  been  climbing  the  steeps 
of  Assisi,  that  the  boy's  mother  let  go  her  slight 
hold  on  life.  In  Rome  the  roses  were  in  bloom, 
and  Soracte  was  veiled  in  a  soft,  blue  haze. 

Tullus  came  to  Maecenas  to  excuse  Propertius 
from  a  dinner,  and  a  slave  led  him  into  the  fa- 
mous garden  where  the  prime  minister  often  re- 
ceived his  guests.  Virgil  was  with  him  now,  and 
they  both  cordially  greeted  the  young  official. 
As  he  gave  his  message,  his  face,  moulded  into 
firm,  strong  lines  by  his  habits  of  thought,  was 
softened  as  if  by  a  personal  regret.  The  three 


A  Poet's  Toll  71 

men  stood  in  silence  for  a  moment,  and  then 
Tullus  turned  impulsively  to  Maecenas. 

"He  chose  between  his  mother  and  his  mis- 
tress," he  said.  "When  I  talked  with  you  in  the 
winter  you  said  that  perhaps  his  mother  would 
have  to  face  death  again  to  give  birth  to  a  poet, 
as  she  had  already  to  give  birth  to  a  child.  I 
have  never  understood  what  you  meant." 

"Ah,  Tullus,"  Maecenas  answered,  laying  his 
hand  affectionately  upon  the  shoulder  of  the 
younger  man,  "I  spoke  of  a  law  not  inscribed 
on  the  Twelve  Tables,  but  cut  deep  in  the  bed- 
rock of  life — is  it  not,  my  Virgil?  " 

But  the  poet,  toward  whom  he  had  quickly 
turned,  did  not  hear  him.  He  stood  withdrawn 
into  his  own  thoughts.  A  shaft  of  sun,  piercing 
through  the  ilex  trees,  laid  upon  his  white  toga  a 
sudden  sheen  of  gold,  and  Maecenas  heard  him 
say  softly  to  himself,  in  a  voice  whose  harmonies 
he  felt  he  had  never  wholly  gauged  before, — 

Sunt  lacrimse  rerum  et  mentem  mortalia  tangunt. 


THE  PHRASE-MAKER 

Graecia  capta  ferum  victorem  cepit. 

— HORACE. 

HE  sun  still  hung  high  over  a  neat 
little  farm  among  the  Sabine  hills,  al- 
though the  midday  heat  had  given 
way  to  the  soft  and  comforting 
warmth  of  a  September  afternoon.  Delicate 
shadows  from  dark-leaved  ilexes,  from  tall  pines 
and  white  poplars,  fell  waveringly  across  a 
secluded  grass-plot  which  looked  green  and  in- 
viting even  after  the  parching  summer.  The 
sound  of  water  bickering  down  the  winding  way 
of  a  stream  gave  life  and  coolness  to  the  warm 
silence.  Thick  among  the  tree-trunks  on  one 
side  grew  cornel  bushes  and  sloes,  making  a  solid 
mass  of  underbrush,  while  on  the  other  side  there 
was  an  opening  through  which  one  might  catch 
sight  of  a  long  meadow,  and  arable  fields  beyond, 
and  even  of  blue  hills  along  the  horizon. 
72 


The  Phrase-Maker  73 

But  the  master  of  this  charming  outlook  evi- 
dently had  his  mind  on  something  else.  He  was 
a  man  about  fifty-five  years  old,  short  and  stout, 
and  with  hair  even  greyer  than  his  age  war- 
ranted. As  he  leaned  back  among  his  cushions 
on  a  stone  bench,  so  skilfully  placed  under  an 
ilex  tree  that  his  face  was  protected  while  the 
sun  fell  across  his  body,  he  looked  an  unromantic 
figure  enough,  no  better  than  any  other  Roman 
gentleman  past  his  prime,  seeking  the  sunshine 
and  intent  on  physical  comfort.  Indeed,  only  a 
gracefully  low  forehead  and  eyes  at  once  keen 
and  genial  saved  his  face  from  commonplaceness, 
and  would  have  led  a  spectator  to  feel  any 
curiosity  about  his  meditations. 

He  had  let  fall  into  his  lap  a  letter  which  had 
reached  him  that  morning,  and  which  he  had 
just  reread.  It  had  travelled  all  the  way  from 
Gaul,  and  he  had  opened  it  eagerly,  curious  to 
know  with  what  new  idea  his  younger  friend  was 
coquetting,  and  hoping  to  hear  some  interesting 
literary  gossip  about  their  common  acquaint- 
ances. But  the  letter  had  been  chiefly  filled 
with  questions  as  to  why  he  had  not  yet  written, 


74  Roads  from  Rome 

and,  above  all,  why  he  did  not  send  on  some 
verses.  Horace  still  felt  the  irritation  of  the 
first  reading,  although  he  had  had  his  lunch  and 
his  nap,  and  had  reached  the  serenest  hour  of  the 
day.  When  they  said  good-by  in  Rome  he  had 
told  Florus  that  he  should  not  write:  he  was  too 
lazy  in  these  later  years  to  write  very  regularly 
to  any  one  except  Maecenas,  the  other  part  of  his 
soul,  and  it  was  foolish  of  the  younger  man  not 
to  have  accepted  the  situation.  As  for  the 
request  for  verses,  Horace  felt  ashamed  of  the 
anger  it  had  aroused  in  him.  One  would  think 
that  he  was  twenty  years  old  again,  with  black 
curls,  lively  legs,  and  a  taste  for  iambs,  to  get  so 
out  of  patience  with  poor  Florus.  But  it  cer- 
tainly was  annoying  to  be  pressed  for  odes  when 
he  had  long  ago  determined  to  spend  the  rest  of 
his  life  in  studying  philosophy.  To  be  sure,  he 
had  once  made  that  vow  too  early  and  had  been 
forced  to  tune  his  lyre  again  after  he  had  thought 
to  hang  it  in  Apollo's  temple.  He  had  had  a 
pride  in  the  enthusiastic  reception  of  his  new 
odes,  and  in  the  proof  that  his  hand  had  by  no 
means  lost  its  cunning;  but  Florus  ought  to 


The  Phrase-Maker  75 

understand  that  he  had  at  that  time  yielded  to 
the  Emperor's  request  as  equivalent  to  a  com- 
mand, and  that  he  meant  what  he  said  when  he 
declared  that  he  wished  to  leave  the  lyric  arena. 

He  had  never  been  unreasonable  in  his  de- 
mands on  life,  nor  slow  in  the  contribution  of  his 
share.  It  seemed  only  just  that  he  should  spend 
the  years  that  were  left  to  him  as  he  chose. 
People  talked  about  his  tossing  off  an  ode  as  if 
he  could  do  it  at  dessert,  and  spend  the  solid 
part  of  the  day  in  other  pursuits.  They  little 
dreamed  that  the  solid  part  of  many  days  had 
often  gone  into  one  of  his  lyric  trifles,  and  that 
Polyhymnia,  she  who  had  invented  the  lyre, 
and  struck  it  herself  in  Lesbos,  was  among  the 
most  exacting  of  the  Muses.  With  the  depart- 
ure of  his  green  youth  and  play-time  had  gone 
the  inclination,  as  well  as  the  courage,  to  set 
himself  such  tasks.  He  had  always  been  in- 
terested in  reading  the  moral  philosophers,  and, 
whatever  his  friends  said,  he  meant  to  keep  to 
his  books,  and  to  write,  if  he  wrote  at  all,  in 
a  comfortable,  contemplative  style. 

Besides  (so  his  irritated  thoughts  ran  on),  how 


76  Roads  from  Rome 

could  Florus  expect  a  man  who  lived  in  Rome  to 
write  imaginative  poetry?  How  tiresome  the 
days  were  there!  Whenever  he  went  out,  some 
one  wanted  his  help  in  a  dull  business  matter 
or  dragged  him  off  to  a  public  reading  by  some 
equally  dull  author.  Even  if  he  tried  to  visit  his 
friends,  one  lived  on  the  Quirinal  and  one  on  the 
Aventine,  and  the  walk  between  lay  through 
noisy  streets  filled  with  clumsy  workmen,  huge 
wagons,  funeral  processions,  mad  dogs,  dirty 
pigs,  and  human  bores.  No  notes  from  the  lyre 
could  make  themselves  heard  amid  such  con- 
fusion. 

Suddenly  his  feeling  quickened:  how  good  it 
was  to  be  away  just  now  in  this  autumnal  season, 
when  Rome  laboured  under  leaden  winds  fraught 
with  melancholy  depression,  and  when  his  head 
always  gave  him  trouble  and  he  especially 
needed  quiet  and  freedom!  The  afternoon  sun 
enveloped  him  in  a  delicious  warmth,  the 
shadows  on'  the  grass  danced  gayly,  as  a  faint 
breeze  stirred  the  branches  above  his  head,  the 
merry  little  stream  near  by  seemed  to  prattle  of 
endless  content. 


The  Phrase-Maker  77 

The  frown  above  Horace's  eyes  disappeared, 
and  with  it  his  inner  annoyance.  Floras  was  a 
dear  fellow,  after  all,  and  although  he  intended 
to  write  him  a  piece  of  his  mind,  he  would  do  it 
in  hexameters,  more  for  his  amusement  than  for 
his  edification.  It  would  be  a  pretty  task  for 
the  morning  hours  to-morrow.  Now  he  meant 
to  be  still,  and  forget  his  writing  tablets  al- 
together. He  was  glad  that  his  house  was 
empty  of  guests,  much  as  he  had  enjoyed  the 
preceding  week  when  a  lively  company  had 
come  over  from  Tibur,  in  whose  retreat  they 
were  spending  September,  to  hunt  him  out. 
They  had  had  charming  dinners  together,  falling 
easily  into  conversations  that  were  worth  while, 
and  by  tacit  consent  forgetting  the  inanities  of 
town  gossip.  But  at  present  he  liked  the  quiet 
even  better.  He  had  been  walking  about  his 
little  place  more  regularly,  laughing  at  his 
steward  who  often  grew  impatient  over  the  tiny 
crops,  and  assuring  himself  of  the  comfort  of  the 
few  slaves  who  ran  the  farm.  And  on  more 
extended  walks  he  had  felt  once  more,  as  he  had 
so  often  in  these  long  years,  the  charm  of  the 


78  Roads  from  Rome 

village  people  near  him,  with  their  friendly 
manners,  their  patient  devotion  to  work,  and 
their  childlike  enjoyment  of  country  holidays. 

Certainly,  as  he  grew  older  and  his  physical 
energy  diminished  (he  had  not  been  really  well 
since  he  was  a  very  young  man,  and  now  before 
his  time  he  felt  old),  he  appreciated  more  and 
more  his  good  fortune  in  owning  a  corner  of  the 
earth  so  situated.  He  remembered  with  amuse- 
ment that  in  earlier  days  he  sometimes  used  to 
feel  bored  by  the  solitude  of  his  farm,  at  the  end 
of  his  journey  from  Rome,  and  wonder  why  he 
had  left  the  lively  city.  But  that  was  when  he 
was  young  enough  to  enjoy  the  bustle  of  the 
streets,  and,  especially  in  the  evenings,  to  join 
the  crowds  of  pleasure-seekers  and  watch  the 
fortune-tellers  and  their  victims.  That  he  could 
mingle  inconspicuously  with  the  populace  he  had 
always  counted  one  of  the  chief  rewards  of  an 
inconspicuous  income.  Now,  the  quiet  of  the 
country  and  the  leisure  for  reading  seemed  so 
much  more  important.  He  was  not  even  as 
anxious  as  he  used  to  be  to  go  to  fashionable 
Tibur  or  Tarentum  or  Baiae  in  search  of  refresh- 


The  Phrase-Maker  79 

ment.     How  pleased  Virgil  would  have   been 
with  his  rustic  content! 

The  sudden  thought  brought  a  smile  to  his 
eyes  and  then  a  shadow.  Virgil  had  been  dead 
more  than  ten  years,  but  his  loss  seemed  all  at 
once  a  freshly  grievous  thing.  So  much  that  was 
valuable  in  his  life  was  inextricably  associated 
with  him.  Horace's  mind,  usually  sanely 
absorbed  in  present  interests,  began,  because  of 
a  trick  of  memory,  to  turn  more  and  more 
toward  the  past.  Virgil  had  been  one  of  the 
first  to  help  him  out  of  the  bitterness  that  made 
him  a  rather  gloomy  young  man  when  the  Re- 
public was  defeated,  and  his  own  little  property 
dissipated,  and  had  introduced  him  to  Maecenas, 
the  source  of  all  his  material  prosperity  and  of 
much  of  his  happiness.  And  indeed  he  had 
justified  Virgil's  faith,  Horace  said  to  himself 
with  a  certain  pride.  He  had  begun  as  the 
obscure  son  of  a  freedman,  and  here  he  was  now, 
after  fifty,  one  of  the  most  successful  poets  of 
Rome,  a  friend  of  Augustus,  a  person  of  impor- 
tance in  important  circles,  and  withal  a  con- 
tented man. 


8o  Roads  from  Rome 

This  last  achievement  he  knew  to  be  the  most 
difficult,  as  it  was  the  most  unusual.  And  there 
in  the  clarifying  sunshine  he  said  to  himself  that 
the  rich  treasure  of  his  content  had  been  bought 
by  noble  coin:  by  his  temperance  and  good 
sense  in  a  luxurious  society,  by  his  self-respecting 
independence  in  a  circle  of  rich  patrons,  and 
perhaps,  above  all,  by  his  austerely  honest  work 
among  many  temptations  to  debase  the  gift  the 
Muses  had  bestowed  upon  him.  He  had  had 
no  Stoic  contempt  for  the  outward  things  of 
this  world.  Indeed,  after  he  had  frankly  ac- 
cepted the  Empire  he  came  to  feel  a  pride  in  the 
glory  of  Augustus's  reign,  as  he  felt  a  deep,  recon- 
ciling satisfaction  in  its  peace,  its  efforts  at  re- 
storing public  morals,  its  genuine  insistence  on  a 
renewed  purity  of  national  life.  The  outward 
tokens  of  increasing  wealth  charmed  his  eyes,  and 
he  took  the  keenest  pleasure  in  the  gorgeous 
marble  pillars  and  porticoes  of  many  of  the 
houses  he  frequented,  in  the  beautiful  statues, 
the  bronze  figures,  the  tapestries,  the  gold  and 
silver  vessels  owned  by  many  of  his  friends,  and 
in  the  rich  appointments  and  the  perfect  service 


The  Phrase-Maker  8 1 

of  their  dining-rooms,  where  he  was  a  familiar 
guest.  But  he  had  never  wanted  these  things 
for  himself,  any  more  than  he  wished  for  a 
pedigree  and  the  images  of  ancestors  to  adorn 
lofty  halls.  He  came  away  from  splendid 
houses  more  than  willing  to  fall  back  into  plainer 
ways.  Neither  had  he  ever  been  apologetic 
toward  his  friends.  If  they  wanted  to  come  and 
dine  with  him  on  inexpensive  vegetables,  he 
would  gladly  himself  superintend  the  polishing 
of  his  few  pieces  of  silver  and  the  setting  of  his 
cheap  table.  If  they  did  not  choose  to  accept 
his  invitations,  why,  they  knew  how  much  their 
standards  amused  him.  As  for  his  more  august 
friends,  the  Emperor  himself,  Maecenas,  and 
Messala,  and  Pollio,  he  had  always  thought  it  a 
mere  matter  of  justice  and  common  courtesy  to 
repay  their  many  kindnesses  by  a  cheerful 
adaptability  when  he  was  with  them,  and  by  a 
dignified  gratitude.  But  not  even  the  Emperor 
could  have  compelled  him  to  surrender  his  inner 
citadel. 

Perhaps,  after  all,  that  was  why  Augustus  had 
forced  him  back  to  the  lyre,  in  support  of  his 


82  Roads  from  Rome 

reforms  and  in  praise  of  the  triumphal  campaigns 
of  Tiberius  and  Drusus.  An  honest  mind  be- 
tokened honest  workmanship,  and  upon  such 
workmanship,  rather  than  upon  a  subsidised 
flattery,  the  imperial  intruder  wished  to  stake 
his  repute. 

However  lightly  Horace  may  from  time  to 
time  have  taken  other  things,  he  never  trifled 
with  his  literary  purpose  after  it  had  once 
matured.  Even  his  first  satiric  efforts  had  been 
honestly  made;  and  when  he  found  his  true 
mission  of  adapting  the  perfect  Greek  poetry  to 
Latin  measures,  there  was  no  airy  grace  of 
phrase,  no  gossamer-like  slightness  of  theme, 
which  did  not  rest  upon  the  unseen  structure  of 
artistic  sincerity.  That  was  why  in  rare  solemn 
moments  he  believed  that  his  poetry  would  live, 
live  beyond  his  own  lifetime  and  his  age,  even, 
perhaps,  as  long  as  the  Pontifex  Maximus  and 
the  Vestal  Virgin  should  ascend  to  the  Capitol 
in  public  processional.  He  had  said  laughingly 
of  his  published  metrical  letters  that  they  might 
please  Rome  for  a  day,  travel  on  to  the  prov- 
inces, and  finally  become  exercise-books  for 


The  Phrase-Maker  83 

school-boys  in  remote  villages.  But  his  odes 
were  different.  They  were  not  prosaic  facts  and 
comments  put  into  metre:  they  were  poetry.  If 
he  were  only  a  laborious  bee  compared  with  the 
soaring  swans  of  Greek  lyric,  at  least  he  had 
distilled  pure  honey  from  the  Parnassian  thyme. 
Now  that  he  had  determined  to  touch  the  lyre 
no  more,  he  felt  more  than  ever  sure  that  his 
lyre  had  served  Rome  well.  How  much  better, 
indeed,  than  his  sword  could  have  served  her,  in 
spite  of  the  military  ambitions  of  his  youth. 
What  a  fool  he  had  been  to  believe  that  the  Re- 
public could  be  saved  by  blood,  or  that  he  could 
be  a  soldier! 

All  these  things  Horace  was  meditating  be- 
neath his  ilex  tree,  being  moved  to  evaluate  his 
life  by  the  chance  appeal  of  his  memory  to  that 
dead  friend  whose  "white  soul"  had  so  often, 
when  he  was  alive,  proved  a  touchstone  for  those 
who  knew  him.  He  was  sure  that  in  the  larger 
issues  Virgil  would  have  given  him  praise  on 
this  afternoon;  and  with  that  thought  came 
another  which  was  already  familiar  to  him.  It 
was  less  probing,  perhaps,  but  more  regretfully 


84  Roads  from  Rome 

sad.  If  only  his  father  could  have  lived  to  see 
his  success!  His  mother  he  had  not  known  at  all, 
except  in  his  halting,  childish  imagination  when, 
one  day  in  each  year,  he  had  been  led  by  his 
father's  hand  to  stand  before  the  small,  plain 
urn  containing  her  ashes.  But  his  father  had 
been  his  perfect  friend  and  comrade  for  twenty 
years.  He  had  been  able  to  talk  to  him  about 
anything.  Above  all  the  reserves  of  maturer 
life,  he  could  remember  the  confidence  with 
which  as  a  child  he  had  been  used  to  rush  home, 
bursting  with  the  gossip  of  the  playground,  or 
some  childish  annoyance,  or  some  fresh  delight. 
He  could  not  remember  that  he  was  ever  scolded 
during  his  little  choleric  outbursts  or  untempered 
enthusiasms,  and  yet,  somehow,  after  a  talk  with 
his  father  he  had  so  often  found  himself  feeling 
much  calmer  or  really  happier.  Anger  in  some 
way  or  other  came  to  seem  a  foolish  thing;  and 
even  if  he  had  come  in  from  an  ecstasy  of  play, 
it  was  certainly  pleasant  to  have  the  beating 
throbs  in  his  head  die  away  and  to  feel  his  cheeks 
grow  cool  again.  In  looking  back,  Horace  knew 
that  no  philosophy  had  ever  so  deeply  influenced 


The  Phrase-Maker  85 

him  to  self-control  and  to  mental  temperance  as 
had  the  common,  kindly,  shrewd  man  who  had 
once  been  a  slave,  and  whose  freedom  had  come 
to  him  only  a  few  years  before  the  birth  of  his 
son. 

And  how  ambitious  the  freedman  had  been 
for  the  education  of  his  son!  Horace  could 
understand  now  the  significance  of  two  days  in 
his  life  which  at  their  occurrence  had  merely 
seemed  full  of  a  vivid  excitement.  One  had  come 
when  he  was  ten  years  old,  but  no  lapse  of  years 
could  dull  its  colours.  On  the  day  before,  he  had 
been  wondering  how  soon  he  would  be  allowed 
to  enter  the  village  school,  and  become  one  of 
the  big  boys  whom  he  watched  every  morning 
with  round  eyes  as  they  went  past  his  house, 
their  bags  and  tablets  hanging  from  their  arms. 
But  on  that  great  day  his  father  had  lifted  him 
in  his  arms — he  was  a  little  fellow — and  looking 
at  him  long  and  earnestly  had  said,  "My  boy, 
we  are  going  to  Rome  next  week,  so  that  you 
may  go  to  school.  I  have  made  up  my  mind  that 
you  deserve  as  good  an  education  as  the  son  of 
any  knight  or  senator."  Horace  had  cried  a 


86  Roads  from  Rome 

little  at  first  in  nervous  excitement,  and  in 
bewilderment  at  his  father's  unwonted  gravity. 
But  all  that  was  soon  forgotten  in  the  important 
bustle  of  preparations  for  a  journey  to  the 
Capital.  The  whole  village  had  made  them  the 
centre  of  critical  interest.  Once  a  bald,  thick-set 
centurion  had  met  them  on  the  street,  and 
stopped  them  with  an  incredulous  question. 
When  he  was  informed  that  it  was  true  that  the 
boy  was  to  be  taken  to  Rome,  he  had  laughed 
sneeringly  and  said,  "How  proud  you  will  be  of 
his  city  education  when  you  find  that  he  comes 
back  to  your  little  government  position,  and  can 
make  no  more  money  than  you  have."  Horace 
had  looked  wonderingly  into  his  father's  face, 
and  found  it  unannoyed  and  smiling.  And  even 
as  a  child  he  had  noticed  the  dignity  with  which 
he  answered  the  village  magnate:  "Sir,  I  wish 
to 'educate  my  son  to  know  what  is  best'to  know, 
and  to  be  a  good  man.  If  in  outward  circum- 
stances he  becomes  only  an  honest  tax-collector, 
he  will  not  for  that  reason  have  studied  amiss, 
nor  shall  I  be  discontented." 
The  next  day  they  had  started  for  Rome,  and 


The  Phrase-Maker  87 

soon  the  boy  was  rioting  in  the  inexpressible 
glories  of  his  first  impressions  of  the  great  city. 
Even  the  ordeal  of  going  to  a  strange  school  had 
its  compensations  in  the  two  slaves  who  went 
behind  him  to  carry  his  books.  The  centurions' 
sons  at  home  had  carried  their  own,  and  Horace 
felt  a  harmless,  boyish  pleasure  (without  in  the 
least  understanding  the  years  of  economy  on  his 
father's  part  that  made  it  possible)  in  the  fact 
that  here  in  Rome  he  had  what  his  schoolmates 
had,  and  appeared  at  school  in  the  same  state. 
One  thing  he  had  that  was  better  than  theirs, 
and  he  felt  very  sorry  for  them.  A  special 
servant  went  about  with  each  of  the  other  boys, 
to  see  that  he  attended  his  classes,  was  polite  to 
his  teachers,  and  did  his  work.  But  Horace  had 
his  own  father  to  look  after  him,  a  thousand 
times  better  than  any  carping  pcedagogus.  His 
father  had  explained  to  him  that  the  other 
fathers  were  busy  men,  that  they  were  the 
ones  who  carried  on  the  great  government, 
'and  ruled  this  splendid  Rome;  they  could  not 
spend  hours  going  to  school  with  their  little 
sons.  But  Horace  thought  it  was  a  great  pity, 


88  Roads  from  Rome 

and  was  sure  that  he  was  the  luckiest  boy  in 
school. 

How  good  it  had  been  to  have  his  father  learn 
directly  from  the  grim  Orbilius  of  his  first  success, 
to  see  him  with  a  quick  flush  on  his  face  take 
from  the  teacher's  hands  the  wax  tablet  on 
which  his  son  had  written  "the  best  exercise  in 
the  class."  His  father  had  not  spoken  directly 
of  the  matter,  but  in  some  way  Horace  had  felt 
that  the  extra  sweet-meats  they  had  had  that 
night  at  supper  were  a  mark  of  his  special 
pleasure.  And  many  years  afterwards,  when  he 
was  looking  through  a  chest  that  had  always  been 
locked  in  his  father's  lifetime,  he  had  found  the 
little  wax  tablet  still  showing  the  imprint  of  his 
childish  stylus. 

For  ten  years  Horace's  school  life  had  con- 
tinued, and  then  the  second  great  day  had  come. 
He  was  familiar  with  early  Latin  literature  and 
with  Homer.  He  had  studied  philosophy  and 
rhetoric  with  eager  industry.  The  end  was  near, 
and  he  had  begun  to  wonder  what  lay  before 
him.  Some  of  his  friends  hoped  to  get  into 
political  life  at  once,  and  perhaps  obtain  posi- 


The  Phrase-Maker  89 

tions  in  the  provinces.  Others  had  literary 
ambitions.  A  few — the  most  enviable — were 
planning  to  go  to  Greece  for  further  study  in  the 
great  philosophical  schools.  Horace  wondered 
whether  his  father  would  want  to  go  back  to  his 
old  home  in  the  country,  and  whether  outside 
of  Rome  he  himself  could  find  the  stimulus  to 
make  something  out  of  such  abilities  as  he  had. 
And  then  the  miracle  happened.  His  father 
came  to  his  room  one  night  and  said,  in  a  voice 
which  was  not  as  steady  as  he  tried  to  make  it, 
"My  boy," — the  old  familiar  preface  to  all  the 
best  gifts  of  his  early  life — "My  boy,  would  you 
like  to  go  to  Athens?  " 

That  sudden  question  had  changed  the  course 
of  Horace's  life.  But  his  father  had  not  lived  to 
see  the  fruits  of  his  sacrifice.  The  last  time 
Horace  saw  him  had  been  on  the  beach  at  Brin- 
disi,  just  as  his  vessel  cast  off  from  its  moor- 
ings, and  the  wind  began  to  fill  the  widespread 
sails.  Horace  had  always  realised  that  the  most 
poignant  emotion  of  a  life  which  had  been 
singularly  free  from  despotic  passions  had  come 
to  him  on  that  day  when  wind  and  tide  seemed 


90  Roads  from  Rome 

to  be  hurrying  him  relentlessly  away  from  the 
Italian  shore,  and  on  its  edge,  at  the  last,  he  saw 
a  figure  grown  suddenly  old  and  tired. 

The  journey  itself  across  the  Ionian  Sea  had 
not  helped  to  increase  his  cheerfulness.  There 
had  been  a  heavy  storm,  and  then  long  days  of 
leaden  sky  and  sea,  and  a  cold  mist  through 
which  one  could  descry  only  at  rare  intervals 
ghostly  sails  of  other  ships,  to  remind  one  that 
here  was  the  beaten  track  of  commerce  from 
the  Orient.  Even  as  they  approached  the 
Piraeus,  and  beat  slowly  and  carefully  up  the 
bay,  the  desolate  mist  continued,  settling  down 
over  the  long  anticipated  coast-line,  and  putting 
an  end  to  all  the  colour  and  light  of  Greece.  But 
afterwards  Horace  realised  that  the  unpropitious 
arrival  had  but  served  as  a  background  for  the 
later  revelation.  The  sungod  did  grant  him  a 
glorious  epiphany  on  that  first  day,  springing, 
as  it  were,  full  panoplied  out  of  a  gulf  of  darkness. 
His  friend  Pompeius,  who  had  gone  to  Athens  a 
month  earlier,  had  by  some  fortunate  chance 
chosen  the  afternoon  of  his  arrival  to  make  one 
of  his  frequent  visits  to  the  shops  and  taverns  of 


The  Phrase-Maker  91 

the  harbour  town.  Drawn  to  the  dock  by  the 
news  that  a  ship  from  Italy  was  approaching, 
he  met  Horace  with  open  arms,  and  afterwards 
accompanied  him  to  the  city  along  the  Phaleron 
road. 

During  the  hour's  walk  the  mist  had  gradually 
lifted,  and  the  sky  grew  more  luminous.  By 
the  time  they  reached  the  ancient  but  still  un- 
finished temple  to  Zeus,  some  of  whose  Corin- 
thian columns  they  had  often  seen  in  Rome, 
built  into  their  own  Capitoline  temple,  the  set- 
ting sun  had  burst  through  all  obstructions,  and 
was  irradiating  the  surrounding  landscape.  The 
hills  turned  violet  and  amethyst,  the  sea  lighted 
into  a  splendid,  shining  waterway,  the  sky  near 
the  horizon  cleared  into  a  deep  greenish-blue, 
and  flared  into  a  vast  expanse  of  gold  above. 
The  Corinthian  pillars  near  them  changed  into 
burnished  gold.  Purple  shadows  fell  on  the 
brown  rock  of  the  Acropolis,  while,  above,  the 
temple  of  Athena  was  outlined  against  the 
golden  sky,  and  the  Sun  tipped  as  with  gleaming 
fire  the  spear  and  the  helmet  of  his  sister  goddess, 
the  bronze  Athena  herself,  as  she  stood  a  little 


92  Roads  from  Rome 

beyond  her  temple,  austere  guardian  of  her 
city. 

On  this  soft  autumn  afternoon  among  the 
Italian  hills  Horace  could  still  remember  his 
startled  amazement  when  he  first  saw  the  ra- 
diance of  Greek  colouring.  He  had  not  realised 
that  the  physical  aspect  of  mountains  and  sky 
would  be  so  different  from  the  landscape  about 
Rome,  and  he  had  never  lost  his  delight  in  the 
fresh  transparency  of  the  Athenian  air.  One 
of  his  earliest  experiments  in  translation  had 
been  with  Euripides's  choral  description  of  the 
"blest  children  of  Erechtheus  going  on  their  way, 
daintily  enfolded  in  the  bright,  bright  air." 

His  student  life  in  the  old  home  of  learning 
had  also  proved  to  be  more  charming  than  he 
could  have  anticipated.  There  had  been  the 
dual  claims  of  literature  and  philosophy  to  stir 
his  mind,  and  memories  of  the  ancient  masters 
of  Greece  to  make  honoured  and  venerable  the 
gardens  and  the  gymnasiums  where  he  listened 
to  his  modern  lectures,  to  enhance  the  beauty  of 
the  incomparable  marble  temples,  to  throw  a 
glamour  even  over  the  streets  of  Athens,  and 


The  Phrase-Maker  93 

so  to  minimise  his  Roman  contempt  for  the 
weakness  of  her  public  life.  And  then  there  were 
the  pleasures  of  youth,  the  breaks  in  the  long 
days,  when  he  and  his  comrades  would  toss 
lecture  notes,  and  even  the  poets,  to  the  winds, 
buy  sweet-smelling  ointments  for  their  hair  in 
some  Oriental  shop  in  the  lively  market-place, 
pick  out  a  better  wine  than  usual,  and  let 
Dionysus  and  Aphrodite  control  the  fleeting 
hours.  On  the  morrow  Apollo  and  Athena 
would  once  more  hold  their  proper  place. 

Of  Roman  affairs  they  knew  little  and  thought 
less,  in  their  charmingly  egotistic  absorption  in 
student  life.  But  a  violent  shock  was  finally  to 
shatter  this  serene  oblivion.  Horace  could 
remember  the  smallest  details  about  that  day. 
It  was  in  the  spring.  The  March  sun  had  risen 
brightly  over  Hymettus,  and  the  sky  was  cloud- 
less. Marcus,  meeting  him  at  a  morning  lecture 
of  Cratippus,  had  surprised  him  by  asking  him 
to  take  his  afternoon  walk  with  him.  "My 
father,"  he  explained,  "has  written  me  about 
a  walk  that  he  and  my  uncle  Quintus  took  to 
the  Academy  when  they  were  students.  They 


94  Roads  from  Rome 

felt  that  Plato  was  still  alive  there,  and  in 
passing  the  hill  of  Colonus  they  thought  of 
Sophocles.  He  wants  me  to  take  the  same  walk, 
and  I  wish  you  would  come  along,  too,  and  tell 
me  some  Sophocles  and  Plato  to  spout  back; 
my  father  will  be  sure  to  expect  a  rhapsody." 
Horace  had  joyfully  assented,  for  Marcus  was 
always  an  entertaining  fellow,  and  might  he  not 
write  to  Cicero  about  his  new  acquaintance,  and 
might  that  not  lead  to  his  some  day  meeting  the 
great  man,  and  hearing  him  talk  about  Greek 
philosophy  and  poetry? 

In  the  cool  of  the  late  afternoon  the  two  young 
men  had  found  the  lovely  grove  of  the  Academy 
almost  deserted,  and  even  Marcus  had  grown 
silent  under  the  spell  of  its  memories.  As  they 
turned  homeward  the  violet  mantle  had  once 
more  been  let  fall  by  the  setting  sun  over 
Athens  and  the  western  hills.  Only  the  sound 
of  their  own  footsteps  could  be  heard  along  the 
quiet  road.  But  at  the  Dipylon  Gate  an  end 
was  put  to  their  converse  with  the  past.  The 
whole  Roman  colony  of  students  was  there  to 
meet  them,  and  it  was  evident  that  the  crowd 


The  Phrase-Maker  95 

was  mastered  by  some  unprecedented  emotion. 
Marcus  darted  forward,  and  it  was  he  who 
turned  to  Horace  with  whitened  face,  and  said 
in  a  curiously  dull  voice,  "Julius  Caesar  was 
assassinated  on  the  Ides."  The  news  had  come 
directly  from  the  governor,  Sulpicius,  one  of 
whose  staff  had  happened  to  meet  a  student  an 
hour  after  the  arrival  of  the  official  packet  from 
Rome.  Marcus  hurried  off  to  the  governor's 
house,  thinking  that  so  good  a  friend  of  his 
father  would  be  willing  to  see  him  and  tell  him 
details.  Horace  could  see  that  the  boy  was  sick 
with  fear  for  his  father's  safety. 

For  several  weeks  the  students  could  think 
or  talk  of  nothing  else,  their  discussions  taking 
a  fresh  impetus  from  any  letters  that  arrived 
from  Rome.  Gradually,  however,  they  settled 
back  again  into  their  studies  and  pleasures, 
feeling  remote  and  irresponsible.  But  with  the 
advent  of  the  autumn  a  new  force  entered  into 
their  lives.  Brutus  came  to  Athens,  and,  while 
he  was  awaiting  the  development  of  political 
events  at  home,  began  to  attend  the  lectures  of 
the  philosophers. 


g6  Roads  from  Rome 

Horace  was  among  the  first  of  the  young 
Romans  to  yield  to  the  extraordinary  spell 
exercised  by  this  grave,  thin-faced,  scholarly 
man,  whose  profound  integrity  of  character  was 
as  obvious  to  his  enemies  as  to  his  friends,  and  as 
commanding  among  the  populace  as  among  his 
peers.  Before  he  came  Horace  had  been  mod- 
erately glad  that  the  Republic  had  struck  at 
tyranny  and  meted  out  to  the  dictator  his 
deserts.  Now  he  was  conscious  of  an  intense 
partisanship,  of  a  personal  loyalty,  of  a  passion- 
ate wish  to  spend  his  life,  too,  in  fighting  for 
Roman  freedom.  And  so,  when  this  wonderful 
man  asked  him,  who  was  merely  a  boy  with  a 
taste  for  moral  philosophy,  and  a  knack  at 
translating  Alcaeus  and  Sappho,  to  become  one 
of  his  tribunes,  and  to  go  with  him  to  meet  the 
forces  of  Caesar's  arrogant  young  nephew  in  one 
final  conflict,  it  was  no  wonder  he  turned  his 
back  upon  the  schools  and  the  Muses,  and  with 
fierce  pride  followed  his  commander.  He  could 
remember  how  stirred  he  had  been  that  last 
morning  when,  on  riding  out  of  the  city,  he  had 
passed  the  famous  old  statues  of  Harmodius  and 


The  Phrase-Maker  97 

Aristogeiton.  In  immortal  youth  they  stood 
there  to  prove  that  in  Athens  a  tyrant  had 
been  slain  by  her  sons.  The  ancient  popular 
song  that  he  had  so  often  heard  sung  by  modern 
Greek  students  over  their  cups  seemed  to  be 
beaten  out  by  his  horse's  hoofs  as,  in  the  pale 
dawn,  they  clattered  out  of  the  city  gate: — 

In  a  wreath  of  myrtle  I'll  wear  my  glaive, 

Like  Harmodius  and  Aristogeiton  brave, 

Who,  striking  the  tyrant  down, 

Made  Athens  a  freeman's  town. 

Harmodius,  our  darling,  thou  art  not  dead! 
Thou  liv'st  in  the  isles  of  the  blest,  'tis  said, 

With  Achilles,  first  in  speed, 

And  Tydides  Diomede. 

In  a  wreath  of  myrtle  I'll  wear  my  glaive, 
Like  Harmodius  and  Aristogeiton  brave, 
When  the  twain  on  Athena's  day 
Did  the  tyrant  Hipparchus  slay.* 

Even  now,  more  than  thirty  years  later,  the 
breeze  in  the  Sabine  ilex  seemed  to  be  playing  a 
wraith  of  the  same  tune.  And  suddenly  there 

*  Translated  by  John  Conington. 


98  Roads  from  Rome 

began  to  follow,  creeping  out  of  long  closed 
fastnesses,  a  spectral  troop  of  loftier  reminders. 
Horace  stirred  a  little  uneasily.  Was  it  only  hot 
youth  and  Brutus  that  had  carried  him  off  on 
that  foolhardy  expedition?  Was  it  possible  that 
Athens  herself  had  driven  him  forth,  furnishing 
him  as  wings  superb  impulses  born  of  the  glory 
of  her  past?  For  many  years  now  he  had  been 
accustomed  to  feel  that  he  owed  to  Greece  a 
quickening  and  a  sane  training  of  his  artistic 
abilities;  a  salvation  from  Alexandrian  pedantry, 
through  a  detailed  knowledge  of  the  original 
and  masterly  epochs  of  Greek  literature;  a 
wholesome  fear  of  Roman  grandiosity  in  any 
form,  engendered  by  a  sojourn  among  perfect 
exemplars  of  architecture  and  sculpture.  For 
many  years,  too,  he  had  been  in  the  habit  of 
regarding  Brutus  as  nobly  mistaken;  of  realis- 
ing that  Julius  Caesar  might  have  developed 
a  more  rational  freedom  in  Rome  than  one 
enshrined  merely  in  republican  institutions. 
Even  great  men  like  Brutus  and  Cicero,  al- 
though they  were  above  the  private  meanness 
and  jealousy  that  in  so  many  cases  adulterated 


The  Phrase-Maker  99 

the  pure  love  of  liberty,  had  not  seen  far  enough. 
What  could  a  theory  of  freedom  give  the  country 
better  than  the  peace  and  the  prosperity  brought 
about  by  the  magnanimous  Emperor?  Horace's 
part  in  the  battle  of  Philippi  had  long  since  be- 
come to  him  a  laughable  episode  of  youth.  He 
had  even  made  a  merry  verse  about  it,  casting 
the  unashamed  story  of  his  flight  in  the  words  of 
Archilochus  and  Alcaeus,  as  if  the  chief  result  for 
him  had  been  a  bit  of  literary  experiment. 

But  now,  like  the  phantom  in  Brutus's  tent 
at  Philippi,  a  grim  question  stole  upon  him  out 
of  the  shadows  of  his  memory.  Was  it  possible 
that  his  fight  on  that  field  of  defeat  had  been,  not 
a  folly,  but  the  golden  moment  of  his  life?  Had 
Athens  taught  him  something  even  profounder 
than  the  art  which  had  made  him  Rome's  best 
lyric  poet?  He  had  forgotten  much  of  her 
humiliation,  and  of  his  own  Roman  pride  in  her 
subjection  during  those  days  when  he  had  lived, 
in  youthful  hero-worship,  with  the  spirits  of  her 
great  past.  Had  she,  after  all,  not  only  taught 
the  sons  of  her  masters  philosophy  and  the  arts, 
but  taken  them  captive,  as  well,  by  the  imperious 


loo  Roads  from  Rome 

ideals  of  her  own  youth,  by  her  love  of  freedom 
and  of  truth? 

Horace  remembered  a  day  when  he  and 
Messala  had  hired  at  the  Piraeus  a  boat  rigged 
with  bright  canvas,  and  sped  before  the  wind 
to  Salamis,  their  readiness  for  any  holiday 
guided  by  a  recent  reading  of  Herodotus  and 
^Eschylus,  and  by  a  desire  to  see  the  actual 
waters  and  shores  where  brute  force  had  been 
compelled  to  put  its  neck  beneath  wisdom  and 
courage.  The  day  had  been  a  radiant  one,  the 
sky  fresh  and  blue,  although  flecked  here  and 
there  by  clouds,  and  the  sea  and  the  hills  and 
the  islands  rich  in  brilliant  colour.  They  had 
worked  their  way  through  the  shipping  of  the 
harbour,  and  then  sailed  straight  for  the  shore  of 
Salamis.  When  they  passed  the  island  of 
Psyttaleia,  where  the  "dance-loving  Pan  had 
once  walked  up  and  down,"  they  had  been  able 
to  see  very  plainly  how  the  Persian  and  Greek 
fleets  lay  of  old,  to  imagine  the  narrow  strait 
once  more  choked  with  upturned  keels,  and 
fighting  or  flying  triremes,  to  picture  Greeks 
leaping  into  the  sea  in  full  armour  to  swim  to 


The  Phrase-Maker  101 

Psyttaleia  and  grapple  with  the  Persians  who 
paced  the  beach  in  insolent  assurance.  The 
wind  whistled  in  their  ears,  freighted,  as  it 
seemed  to  them,  with  the  full-throated  shout 
which,  according  to  the  ^Eschylean  story,  rang 
through  the  battle: — 

Sons  of  the  Hellenes!    On!    Set  free  your  native  land! 
Your  children  free,  your  wives,  ancestral  shrines  of  gods, 
And  tombs  of  fathers'  fathers!    Now  for  all  we  strive! 

A  thunder-storm  had  arisen  before  they  left 
Salamis,  and  their  homeward  sail  had  satisfied 
their  love  for  adventure.  Clouds  and  sun  had 
battled  vehemently,  and  as  they  finally  walked 
back  to  the  city  from  the  harbour,  they  had  seen 
the  Parthenon  rising  in  grave  splendour  against 
the  warring  sky,  a  living  symbol  of  an  ancient 
victory. 

At  another  time,  the  same  group  of  friends  had 
chosen  a  hot  day  of  midsummer  to  ride  on 
mules  along  the  stretch  of  Attic  road  to  Mara- 
thon. The  magnificent  hills  girdling  the  horizon 
had  freshly  impressed  them  as  more  sculp- 
turesque in  outline  than  the  familiar  ones  about 


IO2  Roads  from  Rome 

their  own  Rome,  and  the  very  shape  of  the  olive 
trees  in  a  large  orchard  by  the  roadside  had 
seemed  un-Italian  and  strange.  They  had  al- 
ready become  attuned  to  a  Greek  mood  when 
the  blue  sea  opened  before  them  and  they 
reached  the  large  plain,  stretching  from  the 
foot-hills  of  Pentelicon  to  the  water's  edge.  The 
heat  had  stilled  all  life  in  the  neighbourhood,  and 
Marathon  seemed  hushed,  after  all  these  five 
hundred  years,  in  reverence  before  the  spirit  of 
liberty.  Their  ride  home  had  been  taken  in  the 
cool  of  the  day,  so  that  the  hills  which  rose  from 
the  sea  had  assumed  a  covering  of  deep  purple  or 
more  luminous  amethyst.  From  the  shore  of 
the  sea  they  had  passed  into  a  wooded  road,  with 
a  golden  sky  shining  through  the  black  branches. 
Later  the  stars  had  come  out  in  great  clusters, 
and  Messala,  who  now  and  then  betrayed  a 
knowledge  of  poetry  and  a  gravity  of  thought 
that  surprised  his  friends,  had  recited  Pindar's 
lines : — 

.  .  .  Aye,  undismayed 
And  deep  the  mood  inspired, 
A  light  for  man  to  trust,  a  star 
Of  guidance  sure,  that  shines  afar. 


The  Phrase-Maker  103 

If  he  that  hath  it  can  the  sequel  know, 
How  from  the  guilty  here,  forthwith  below 
A  quittance  is  required. 

But  in  sunlight  undimmed  by  night  and  by  day 
Toil-free  is  the  life  of  the  good — for  they 
Nor  vex  earth's  soil  with  the  labour  of  hand, 
Nor  the  waters  of  Ocean  in  that  far  land — 
Nay,  whoever  in  keeping  of  oaths  were  fearless 
With  the  honoured  of  gods  share  life  that  is  tearless. 

That  night-ride  had  come  back  to  Horace  sev- 
eral years  ago  when  he  was  writing  his  ode  on 
Pindar,  but  to-day's  memory  seemed  strangely 
different.  Then  he  had  remembered  what  a 
revelation  Pindar's  lyric  art  had  been  to  him 
amid  the  severe  and  lofty  beauty  of  Greek 
scenery.  Now  he  caught  a  haunting  echo  also 
of  how,  when  he  was  twenty-one,  these  lines  of 
the  artist  had  seemed  to  him  a  fitting  explanation 
of  the  mound  of  earth  heaped  over  the  dead  at 
Marathon.  He  had  long  ago  learned  to  laugh  at 
the  fervour  of  youth's  first  grappling  with  ideas, 
and  had  come  to  see  that  the  part  of  a  sensible 
man  was  to  select  judiciously  here  and  there, 
from  all  the  schools,  enough  reasonable  tenets 


104  Roads  from  Rome 

to  enable  him  to  preserve  a  straight  course  of 
personal  conduct.  As  for  understanding  first 
causes,  the  human  race  never  had  and  never 
could ;  and  as  for  a  belief  in  heavenly  revelations 
or  in  divine  influences,  all  such  tendencies 
ended  in  philosophic  absurdity.  Why,  then,  at 
this  late  day,  should  he  remember  that  night, 
on  the  road  from  Marathon  to  Athens,  when  the 
ancient  struggle  for  liberty  had  stirred  in  his  own 
heart  "a  mood  deep  and  undismayed,"  and  when 
an  impalpable  ideal,  under  the  power  of  a  rush- 
ing torrent  of  melody,  had  come  to  seem  a 
" light  for  man  to  trust?" 

Was  it,  indeed,  days  like  these  that  had  made 
Brutus's  work  so  easy  when  he  began  to  collect 
his  young  company  about  him?  And  what  if 
Brutus  had  been  "mistaken?"  Was  there  not  a 
higher  wisdom  than  that  which  could  fashion 
nations?  Horace  had  seen  his  dead  face  at 
Philippi.  Had  he  done  right  ever  afterwards, 
however  reverently,  to  attribute  a  blunder  to 
that  mighty  spirit  which  had  left  upon  the  life- 
less body  such  an  imprint  of  majesty  and  repose? 
Surely  common  sense,  temperance,  honest  work, 


The  Phrase-Maker  105 

honourableness,  fidelity,  were  good  fruits  of 
human  life  and  of  useful  citizenship.  But  was 
there  a  vaster  significance  in  a  noble  death? 
Was  there  even  a  truer  citizenship  in  the  prod- 
igal and  voluntary  pouring  out  of  life,  on  a  field 
of  defeat,  amid  alien  and  awful  desolation? 

The  sun  was  hurrying  toward  the  west,  and 
Horace  realised,  with  a  quick  chill,  that  he  was 
entirely  in  the  shadow.  Beyond  the  meadow 
he  could  see  a  team  of  oxen  turn  wearily,  with  a 
heavily  loaded  wagon,  toward  their  little  stable. 
The  driver  walked  with  a  weary  limp.  Even  the 
little  boy  by  his  side  forgot  to  play  and  scamper, 
and  rather  listlessly  put  the  last  touches  to  a 
wreath  of  autumn  flowers  which  he  meant  to 
hang  about  the  neck  of  the  marble  Faunus  at 
the  edge  of  the  garden. 

Where  could  Davus  be?  Ah,  there  he  came, 
half-running  already  as  if  he  knew  his  master 
wanted  him. 

"Davus,"  he  called  out,  "make  haste.  I 
have  had  a  visit  from  the  shades,  and  it  has  been 
as  unpleasant  as  those  cold  baths  the  doctor 
makes  me  take."  Then,  as  he  saw  the  look  of 


106  Roads  from  Rome 

fright  on  the  wrinkled  face  of  the  old  slave  who 
had  been  with  his  father  when  he  died,  he  broke 
into  a  laugh  and  put  his  hand  on  his  shoulder. 
"Calm  yourself,  my  good  fellow,"  he  said,  "we 
shall  all  be  shades  some  day,  and  to-day  I  feel 
nearer  than  usual  to  that  charming  state.  But 
in  the  meantime  there  is  a  chance  for  Bacchus 
and  the  Muses.  Tell  them  to  get  out  a  jar  of 
Falernian  to-night,  and  do  you  unroll  Menander. 
The  counsels  of  the  divine  Plato  are  too  eternal 
for  my  little  mind.  And,  Davus,"  he  added 
thoughtfully,  as  he  rose  and  leaned  on  the 
slave's  willing  arm,  "as  soon  as  we  get  to  the 
house,  write  down,  'Greece  took  her  captors 
captive.'  That  has  the  making  of  a  good  phrase 
in  it — a  good  phrase.  I  shall  polish  it  up  and 
use  it  some  day." 


A  ROMAN  CITIZEN 


OOK  at  him — a  subject  for  his  own 
verses — a  grandfather  metamor- 
phosed into  an  infant  Bacchus! 
Will  he  be  a  Mercury  in  swaddling 
clothes  by  next  year?  O,  father,  father,  the  gods 
certainly  laid  their  own  youth  in  your  cradle 
fifty- two  years  ago!" 

The  speaker,  a  young  matron,  smiled  into  her 
father's  eyes,  which  were  as  brilliant  and  tender 
as  her  own.  Ovid  and  his  daughter  were  sin- 
gularly alike  in  a  certain  blitheness  of  demeanour, 
and  in  Fabia's  eyes  they  made  a  charming  picture 
now,  both  of  them  in  festal  white  against  the 
March  green  of  the  slender  poplars.  Perilla's 
little  boy  had  climbed  into  his  grandfather's  lap 
and  laid  carefully  upon  his  hair,  still  thick  and 
black,  a  wreath  of  grape  leaves  picked  from 
early  vines  in  a  sunny  corner.  Fabia  and 
107 


io8  Roads  from  Rome 

Perilla's  husband,  Fidus  Cornelius,  smiled  at 
each  other  in  mutual  appreciation  of  a  youth 
shared  equally,  it  seemed  to  them,  by  the  other 
three  with  the  new-born  spring. 

It  was  Ovid's  birthday  and  they  were  cele- 
brating it  in  their  country  place  at  the  juncture 
of  the  Flaminian  and  Clodian  roads.  The 
poet  had  a  special  liking  for  his  gardens  here,  and 
he  had  preferred  to  hold  his  fete  away  from  the 
city,  in  family  seclusion,  because  Fidus  was 
about  to  take  Perilla  off  to  Africa,  where  he  was 
to  be  proconsul.  The  shadow  of  the  parting  had 
thrown  into  high  relief  the  happiness  of  the 
day.  Perilla  had  always  said  that  it  was  worth 
while  to  pay  attention  to  her  father's  birthday, 
because  he  could  accept  family  incense  without 
strutting  like  a  god  and  was  never  so  charming 
as  when  he  was  being  spoiled.  To-day  they  had 
spared  no  pains,  and  his  manner  in  return  had 
fused  with  the  tenderness  kept  for  them  alone 
the  gallantry,  at  once  that  of  worldling  and  of 
poet,  which  made  him  the  most  popular  man  in 
Roman  society.  Now,  as  the  afternoon  grew 
older  and  his  grandson  curled  comfortably  into 


A  Roman  Citizen  109 

his  arms,  the  conversation  turned  naturally 
to  personal  things.  Perilla's  jest  led  her  father 
to  talk  of  his  years,  and  to  wonder  whether  he 
was  to  have  as  long  a  life  as  his  father,  who 
had  died  only  two  or  three  years  before  at 
ninety. 

"At  least,  having  no  sons,"  he  went  on,  "I 
shall  be  spared  some  of  his  disappointments.  It 
was  cruel  that  my  brother,  who  could  have 
satisfied  him  by  going  into  public  life,  should 
have  died.  Father  had  no  use  for  literature.  He 
used  to  point  out  to  me  that  not  even  Homer 
made  money,  so  what  could  I  expect?  But  I 
believe  that  even  he  saw  that  my  student 
speeches  sounded  like  metreless  verse,  and  later 
on  he  accepted  the  bad  bargain  with  some 
grace.  He  had  sniffed  at  what  I  considered  my 
youthful  successes.  I  was  immensely  proud 
over  seeing  Virgil  once  in  the  same  room  as 
myself,  and  when  I  came  to  know  Horace  and 
Propertius  fairly  intimately  I  felt  myself  quite  a 
figure  in  Rome.  But  father  had  little  or  no 
respect  for  them — except  when  Horace  turned 
preacher — and  no  patience  at  all  with  what  I 


no  Roads  from  Rome 

wrote.  Before  he  died,  however,  when  these 
greater  men  had  passed  off  the  stage  and  he  saw 
young  men  look  up  to  me  as  I  had  looked  up  to 
them,  and  found  I  could  sell  my  wares,  he  began 
to  grant  that  I  had,  after  all,  done  something 
with  my  time." 

"I  never  can  realise,"  Perilla  exclaimed,  "that 
you  are  old  enough  to  have  seen  Virgil!  Why, 
I  wasn't  even  born  when  he  died!  I  suppose 
those  times,  when  Augustus  was  young,  were 
very  fiery  and  inspiring,  but  I  am  so  glad  I  live 
in  this  very  year.  I  would  rather  have  you  the 
chief  poet  of  Rome  than  a  hundred  solemn 
Virgils,  and  surely  life  can  never  have  been  as 
lovely  as  it  is  now.  Isn't  Rome  much  finer  and 
more  finished?" 

Fidus  smiled.  "You  are  your  father's  own 
child,"  he  said.  "We  certainly  are  getting  the 
rustic  accent  out  of  our  mouths  and  the  rustic 
scruples  out  of  our  morals.  In  the  meantime  "- 
he  added  lightly — "some  of  us  have  to  plod 
along  with  our  old  habits,  or  where  would  the 
Empire  be?  I  don't  expect  to  improve  much  on 
the  proconsulship  of  my  father." 


A  Roman  Citizen  in 

Ovid's  eyes  rested  whimsically  on  the  young 
man,  and  after  a  pause  he  said:  "Art  is  one 
thing  and  conduct  is  another.  I  trust  Perilla 
to  you  but  with  no  firmer  assurance  of  her 
happiness  than  I  have  of  Fabia's  entrusted  to  me. 
Soldiering  and  proconsuling  have  their  place, 
but  so  has  the  service  of  the  Muses.  While  you 
are  looking  after  taxes  in  Africa,  we  will  make 
Rome  a  place  to  come  back  to  from  the  ends 
of  the  earth.  After  all,  to  live  is  the  object  of 
life,  and  where  can  you  live  more  richly,  more 
exquisitely  than  here?  You  will  find  you  cannot 
stay  away  long.  Rome  is  the  breath  we  breathe. 
I  like  to  believe  that  will  prove  true  of  you.  I 
cannot  give  up  Perilla  long,  even  with  this  young 
Roman  as  a  hostage."  The  child  had  fallen 
asleep,  and  with  a  light  kiss  on  his  tousled  curls 
the  grandfather  turned  him  over  to  his  mother's 
arms.  "Let  us  leave  these  connoisseurs  to  dis- 
cuss his  dimples,"  he  said  to  his  son-in-law, 
"drag  our  other  boy  out  of  his  bee-hives  and 
have  one  more  game  of  ball  before  I  get  too 
old." 

Perilla  watched  the  two  men  as  they  walked 


112  Roads  from  Rome 

off  toward  the  apiary,  and  when  she  turned  to 
her  stepmother  her  eyes  were  wet  with  sudden 
tears.  "Fidus  was  almost  impertinent  to  father, 
wasn't  he?  And  father  was  so  perfect  to  him! 
That  is  what  I  tell  Fidus,  when  he  talks  like 
grandfather  and  says  we  are  all  going  to  the 
dogs — I  tell  him  that  at  least  we  are  keeping  our 
manners  as  we  go,  which  is  more  than  can  be 
said  of  the  reformers.  I  am  always  nervous 
when  he  and  father  get  on  to  social  questions, 
they  feel  so  differently.  Fidus  was  quite  angry 
with  me  the  other  day  because  I  said  I  was 
thankful  that  we  had  learned  to  have  some  ap- 
preciation of  taste  and  good  form  and  elegance 
and  that  we  should  never  go  back  to  being  boors 
and  prudes.  He  insisted  that  if  by  boors  and 
prudes  I  meant  men  and  women  who  cared  more 
for  courage  and  virtue  than  for  '  hypocrisy '  and 
'license,'  I  should  see  them  become  the  fashion 
again  in  Rome,  before  I  knew  it.  Augustus  was 
not  blindfolded,  if  he  was  old.  But,  although 
Fidus  doesn't  understand  father,  he  does  love 
him.  He  said  about  coming  here  that  he  would 
rather  spend  his  last  day  with  father  than  with 


A  Roman  Citizen  113 

any  other  man  in  Rome.    And  what  a  happy 
day  it  has  been!" 

Perilla  rose  impulsively  and,  tucking  her 
sleeping  child  in  among  the  cushions  of  a  neigh- 
bouring bench,  threw  herself  on  the  grass  by  the 
older  woman.  Her  forty-five  years  sat  lightly 
upon  Fabia,  leaving  her  still  lovely  in  the  sensi- 
tive eyes  of  her  husband  and  stepdaughter. 
A  temperamental  equableness  and  a  disciplined 
character  gave  to  her  finely  modelled  face  an 
inward  tranquillity  which  was  a  refuge  to  their 
ardent  natures.  She  only  smiled  now,  as  Perilla's 
lively  tongue  began  again:  "How  happy  you 
make  father  all  the  time!  It  keeps  me  from 
feeling  too  dreadfully  about  going  off  to  Africa. 
Do  you  know,  when  you  first  came  to  us,  I  had 
an  idea  you  wouldn't  understand  him!  I  was 
just  old  enough  to  realise  that  all  your  traditions 
were  very  austere  ones,  that  your  family  be- 
longed to  the  old  order  and  had  done  wonderful 
things  that  weren't  poetry  and  the  joy  of  living 
at  all.  But  I  was  far  too  young  to  understand 
that  just  because  you  did  belong  to  people  like 
that,  when  you  married  a  man  you  would  sink 


114  Roads  from  Rome 

your  life  in  his.  That  seems  to  me  now  to  be  the 
strongest  thing  about  you.  I  have  a  feeling  that 
inside  you  somewhere  your  character  stands  like 
a  rock  upon  which  father's  ideas  could  beat  for- 
ever without  changing  it.  But  you  never  let 
that  character  make  you  into  a  force  separate 
from  him.  You  have  made  his  home  perfect 
in  every  detail,  but  outside  of  it  you  are  just 
his  wife.  Tell  me,  does  that  really  satisfy 
you?" 

Fabia's  smile  grew  into  a  laugh.  "  I  seem  very 
old-fashioned  to  you,  do  I  not,  dear  child?  It  is 
not  because  of  my  age,  either,  for  plenty  of 
middle-aged  women  agree  with  you.  It  is  quite 
in  the  air,  isn't  it,  the  independence  of  women, 
their  right  to  choose  their  own  paths?  I  was 
invited  to  a  reading  of  the  Lysistrata  the  other 
day,  and  actually  one  woman  said  afterwards 
that  she  believed  Aristophanes  was  only  fore- 
seeing a  time  when  women  would  take  part  in 
the  government!  She  was  laughed  down  for 
that,  but  most  of  the  others  agreed  that  the  whole 
progress  of  society  since  Aristophanes 's  time  lay 
in  the  emancipation  of  women  from  the  con- 


A  Roman  Citizen  115 

fines  of  the  home  and  from  intellectual  servility. 
I,  too,  believe  in  mental  freedom,  but  you  all 
insist  a  great  deal  upon  the  rights  involved  in 
being  individuals.  I  have  never  been  able  to 
see  what  you  gain  by  that.  My  husband  is  a 
citizen  of  Rome.  To  be  called  his  wife  is  my 
proudest  title.  It  makes  no  difference  to  the 
state  what  I  am  or  do  of  myself.  I  live  to  the 
state  only  through  him." 

The  younger  woman  had  begun  to  speak 
almost  before  Fabia  had  finished,  but  the  con- 
versation was  interrupted  by  the  nurse  coming 
for  the  child.  Perilla  went  back  to  the  house  with 
them,  confessing,  with  a  laugh,  that  an  hour 
with  her  boy  at  bed-time  was  more  important 
than  trying  to  change  her  perfect  mother.  It 
was  not  yet  time  to  dress  for  the  birthday  dinner, 
which  was  to  crown  the  day,  and  Fabia  lingered 
on  in  the  garden  to  watch  the  gathering  rose 
in  the  late  afternoon  sky  above  the  tree-tops.  An 
enchanted  sense  of  happiness  came  to  her  in  the 
silence  of  the  hour.  She  did  not  agree  with  her 
husband  that  happiness  was  the  main  object 
of  life,  but  she  was  very  grateful  to  the  gods  who 


n6  Roads  from  Rome 

had  allowed  her  to  be  happy  ever  since  she  was  a 
little  girl,  left  to  the  care  of  a  devoted  uncle  by 
parents  she  was  too  young  to  mourn.  The  latter 
half  of  her  life  these  gods  had  crowned  with  a 
love  which  made  her  youth  immortal.  She  had 
been  married  when  she  was  a  mere  girl  to  a 
young  soldier  who  had  not  lived  long  enough 
to  obtrude  upon  her  life  more  than  a  gentle 
memory  of  his  bravery.  The  bearing  of  a  child 
had  been  the  vital  part  of  that  marriage,  and 
the  child  had  come  into  her  new  home  with  her, 
leaving  it  only  for  a  happy  one  of  her  own.  Her 
husband's  child  had  been  like  a  second  daughter 
to  her,  and  throughout  the  twenty  years  of  her 
life  with  Ovid  joy  had  consistently  outweighed 
all  difficulties.  Insolent  tongues  had  been  busy 
with  his  faithlessness  to  her.  But  after  the 
first  fears  she  had  come  to  understand  that,  al- 
though other  women  often  touched  the  poet  and 
artist  in  him,  none  save  herself  knew  the  essential 
fidelity  and  the  chivalrous  tenderness  of  the 
husband.  She  had  accepted  with  pride  his 
shining  place  in  public  regard.  It  was  no  wonder 
that  he  loved  Rome,  for  Rome  loved  him. 


A  Roman  Citizen  117 

A  nightingale  broke  into  song  among  the  rose 
bushes.  Her  face  was  like  a  girl's  as  she  thought 
of  Ovid,  with  the  grape  leaves  above  his  vivid 
face,  young  as  the  gods  are  young,  seeking  her 
eyes  with  his.  A  faint  smell,  as  of  homely 
things,  rose  frqm  the  familiar  earth.  Lights 
began  to  appear  in  the  windows  of  the  villa.  She 
had  come  to  this  home  when  she  and  Ovid  were 
married,  and  this  morning  she  had  again  offered 
her  tranquil  prayers  to  the  Penates  so  long  her 
own.  The  happy  years  broke  in  upon  her.  Ah, 
yes,  she  and  her  husband  had  the  divine  essence 
of  youth  within  them.  But  they  had  something 
finer  too,  something  that  comes  only  to  middle 
age — the  sense  of  security  and  peace,  the  assur- 
ance that,  except  for  death,  no  violent  changes 
lay  ahead  of  them.  She  had  only  to  nurture,  as 
they  faced  old  age  together,  a  happiness  already 
in  full  measure  theirs. 

As  she  turned  toward  the  house  she  met  her 
husband,  come  himself  to  seek  her.  In  the  re- 
current springs  of  her  after  life  the  faint  smell 
of  the  burgeoning  earth  filled  her  with  an  un- 
appeasable desire. 


1 1 8  Roads  from  Rome 

II 

The  next  week  Fidus  and  Perilla  started  for 
Libya,  leaving  the  two  children  with  their 
grandfather  rather  than  expose  them  to  the 
dangers  of  the  African  climate.  Ovid  and 
Fabia  spent  the  summer  as  usual  in  the  cool 
Apennines  at  the  old  family  homestead  at 
Sulmo.  They  lingered  on  into  the  autumn  for 
the  sake  of  the  vintage,  a  favourite  season  with 
them,  and  did  not  return  to  their  beautiful  town 
house  at  the  foot  of  the  Capitoline  hill  until  late 
in  October.  While  Fabia  was  busy  with  the 
household  readjustments  entailed  by  the  pres- 
ence of  the  children  with  their  attendants  and 
tutors,  and  before  social  engagements  should  be- 
come too  numerous,  Ovid  spent  several  hours 
each  day  over  his  Metamorphoses,  to  which  he 
was  giving  the  final  polish.  Patient  work  of 
this  kind  was  always  distasteful  to  him  and  he 
welcomed  any  chance  to  escape  from  it.  At  the 
end  of  November  Fabia's  cousin,  Fabius  Maxi- 
mus,  went  to  the  island  of  Elba  to  look  after 
some  family  mines,  and  Ovid  made  his  wife's 


A  Roman  Citizen  119 

business  interests  a  pretext  for  a  short  trip  up 
the  Tuscan  coast  in  his  company.  He  was  to  be 
back  for  a  dinner  at  Macer's,  his  fellow  poet's, 
on  the  Ides  of  December,  to  meet  some  friends 
of  both  from  Athens. 

On  the  morning  of  the  eighth  day  before  the 
Ides  a  message  came  to  Fabia  from  the  Palace 
asking  where  Ovid  was.  The  inquiry  seemed 
flattering  and  Fabia  wondered  what  pleasant 
attention  was  in  store  for  her  husband.  As  it 
happened,  she  saw  no  one  outside  of  her  own 
household  either  that  day  or  the  next,  being 
kept  indoors  by  the  necessity  of  installing  new 
servants  sent  down  from  the  estate  at  Sulmo. 
She  was,  therefore,  entirely  unprepared  for  the 
appalling  public  news  which  her  uncle,  Rufus, 
brought  to  her  in  the  early  evening  of  the 
seventh  day  before  the  Ides.  There  was  some- 
thing almost  terrifying  in  the  wrenching  of  her 
mind  from  the  placid  details  of  linen  chests 
and  store-rooms  to  the  disasters  in  Caesar's 
household.  Augustus,  without  warning,  at  the 
opening  of  what  promised  to  be  a  brilliant  social 
season,  had  risen  'in  terrible  wrath;  and  Julia, 


I2O  Roads  from  Rome 

his  granddaughter,  her  lover,  Decimus  Junius 
Silanus,  and,  it  was  rumoured,  several  other 
prominent  men  had  been  given  the  choice  of 
accepting  banishment  or  submitting  to  a  public 
prosecution.  There  was  really  no  choice  for 
them.  The  courts  would  condemn  relentlessly, 
and  the  only  way  to  save  even  life  was  to  leave 
Rome. 

"But  the  brutal  suddenness  of  it!"  Fabia 
exclaimed.  "It  seems  more  tragic,  somehow, 
than  her  mother's  punishment.  Isn't  every- 
body aghast?  And  do  you  think  she  has  de- 
served it?"  Rufus  looked  grave  and  troubled. 
"It  is  not  easy  to  know  what  one  does  think," 
he  said.  "There  has  been  a  great  deal  of  boasting 
about  our  prosperity,  our  victories  abroad  and 
our  lustre  at  home.  But  some  of  us  who  have 
been  watching  closely  have  wondered  how  long 
this  would  last.  The  Empire  has  been  created  at 
a  great  cost  and  cannot  be  preserved  at  a  lesser 
price.  Insurrections  have  to  be  put  down  in  the 
provinces,  harmony  and  efficiency  have  to  be 
maintained  in  the  capital.  It  takes  harsh  cour- 
age, inflexible  morals  to  do  all  that.  Julia  and 


A  Roman  Citizen  121 

with  her  Roman  society  have  defied  Caasar's 
desires,  just  as  her  mother  and  her  set  defied 
them  ten  years  ago.  Imagine  the  grief  and 
despair  of  our  old  Emperor!  He  must  do  some- 
thing savage,  drastic,  irrevocable,  to  save  his 
state.  My  heart  breaks  for  him,  and  yet  I 
cannot  help  pitying  our  imperial  lady.  With 
her  light  grace,  her  audacious  humour,  among  our 
stern  old  standards,  she  has  often  made  me  think 
of  a  Dryad  moving  with  rosy  feet  and  gleaming 
shoulders  in  a  black  forest.  All  our  family, 
Fabia,  have  been  like  the  trees.  But  perhaps 
Rome  needs  the  Dryads  too.  What  is  moral 
truth?"  Fabia  smiled  suddenly.  "Ovid  would 
say  it  is  beauty,"  she  said.  "That  is  an  old 
dispute  between  us. "  Her  face  fell  again.  "He 
will  be  deeply  distressed  by  this  calamity. 
Julia  has  been  very  gracious  to  him  and  he  ad- 
mires her  even  more  than  he  did  her  mother." 
"When  is  he  coming  home?"  Rufus  asked. 
"I  didn't  expect  him  until  the  day  before  the 
Ides,"  Fabia  answered,  "but  I  think  now  he 
may  come  earlier.  Caesar  sent  this  morning  to 
inquire  where  he  was,  and  perhaps  some  honour  is 


122  Roads  from  Rome 

going  to  be  offered  that  will  bring  him  back  im7 
mediately — a  reading  at  the  Palace,  perhaps, 
or — but,  uncle,"  she  exclaimed,  "what  is  the 
matter?  You  have  turned  so  white.  You  are 
sick."  She  came  near  him  with  tender,  anxious 
hands,  and  he  gathered  them  into  his  thin,  old 
ones  and  drew  her  to  him.  "No,  dear  heart," 
he  said.  "I  am  not  sick.  For  a  moment  fear 
outwitted  me,  a  Fabian.  You  must  promise  me 
not  to  be  afraid,  whatever  happens.  Is  it  cruel 
to  warn  you  of  what  may  never  come  to  you? 
But  our  days  our  troubled.  Jove's  thunderstorm 
has  broken  upon  us.  Your  husband  is  among 
the  lofty.  It  is  only  the  obscure  who  are  sure  of 
escaping  the  lightning.  Send  for  me,  if  you  need 
me.  Remember  whose  blood  is  in  you.  I  must 
go — there  may  yet  be  time."  He  kissed  her 
forehead  hurriedly  and  was  gone. 

Fabia  never  knew  accurately  what  happened 
before  the  sun  rose  a  second  time  after  this  night. 
Afterwards  she  recognised  the  linked  hours  as 
the  bridge  upon  which  she  passed,  without  re- 
turn, from  joy  to  pain,  from  youth  to  age,  from 
ignorance  to  knowledge.  But  the  manner  of 


A  Roman  Citizen  123 

the  crossing  never  became  clear  in  her  memory. 
Details  stood  out  mercilessly.  Their  relation- 
ship, their  significance  were  at  the  time  as  phan- 
tasmagoric as  if  she  had  been  lost  in  the  torturing 
unrealities  of  a  nightmare.  Just  after  her  uncle 
left  she  was  called  to  the  room  of  Perilla's  young- 
est child  who  had  awakened  with  a  sore  throat 
and  fever.  Against  the  protests  of  the  nurse, 
she  sat  up  with  him  herself  because  through 
the  shadows  that  darkened  her  mind  she  groped 
after  some  service  to  her  husband.  When  she 
was  an  old  woman  she  could  have  told  what 
was  carved  on  the  cover  of  the  little  box  from 
which  she  gave  the  medicine  every  hour  until  the 
fever  broke,  and  the  colour  of  the  nurse's  dress 
as  she  hurried  in  at  dawn.  Practical  matters 
claimed  her  attention  after  she  had  bathed  and 
dressed.  The  doctor  was  sent  for  to  confirm  her 
own  belief  that  the  child  had  nothing  more  than 
a  cold.  The  older  boy's  tutor  consulted  her 
about  a  change  in  the  hours  of  exercise.  A 
Greek  artist  came  to  talk  over  new  decorations 
for  the  walls  of  the  dining  room. 
The  forenoon  passed.  The  cold  wind,  which 


124  Roads  from  Rome 

had  been  blowing  all  night,  an  early  herald  of 
winter,  died  down.  A  portentous  silence  seemed 
to  isolate  her  from  the  rest  of  the  city.  At  noon 
Ovid  came  home.  She  felt  no  surprise.  They 
clung  to  each  other  in  silence  and  when  he  did 
speak  he  seemed  to  be  saying  what  she  had 
known  already.  The  words  made  little  impres- 
sion. She  only  thought  how  white  he  was,  and 
how  old,  as  old  as  she  was  herself.  His  voice 
seemed  to  reach  her  ears  from  a  great  distance. 
He  was  to  go  away  from  her  to  the  world's  end, 
to  a  place  called  Tomi  on  the  terrible  Black  Sea. 
The  formal  decree  had  stated  as  the  cause  the 
immorality  of  his  Art  of  Love — yes,  the  volume 
had  been  published  ten  years  ago  and  he  had 
enjoyed  the  imperial  favour  as  much  since  then 
as  before.  The  real  reason,  so  the  confidential 
messenger  had  explained  to  him,  was  something 
quite  different.  It  was  not  safe  to  tell  her.  Her 
ignorance  was  better  for  them  both.  He  had 
made  a  terrible  blunder,  the  Emperor  called  it  a 
crime,  but  he  was  innocent  of  evil  intent.  No, 
there  was  no  use  in  making  any  plea.  He  had 
talked  the  matter  over  with  Maximus,  although 


A  Roman  Citizen  125 

he  had  not  told  him  what  the  "crime"  was. 
Maximus  had  been  sure  that  nothing  could  be 
done,  that  denial  would  lead  only  to  a  public 
trial,  the  verdict  of  which  would  be  still  more 
disastrous.  The  Emperor  was  clement,  his 
anger  might  cool,  patience  for  a  year  or  two 
might  bring  a  remission  of  the  sentence.  The 
only  hope  lay  in  obedience.  Maximus  had  not 
been  allowed  to  return  with  him  in  the  hurried 
journey  by  government  post.  The  officers  had 
held  out  little  hope  to  him.  A  change  had  come 
over  Caesar.  Banishment  was  banishment.  "An 
exile?" — no,  he  was  not  that!  He  was  still  a 
citizen  of  Rome,  he  still  had  his  property  and 
his  rights — she  was  no  exile's  wife!  Yes,  she 
must  stay  in  Rome.  It  was  futile  for  her  to 
argue.  Caesar  was  inexorable.  She  asked  him 
when  he  must  go.  He  said  before  another 
sunrise,  to-morrow  must  not  see  him  within  the 
city  limits.  The  words  held  no  new  meaning 
for  her.  What  were  hours  and  minutes  to  the 
dead?  They  talked  in  broken  sentences.  She 
promised  to  comfort  Perilla.  He  was  glad  his 
father  and  mother  were  dead.  He  hoped  her 


126  Roads  from  Rome 

daughter    could    come    to    her    at    once    from 
Verona. 

They  were  interrupted  by  the  stormy  arrival 
of  a  few  faithful  friends — how  few  they  were  she 
did  not  realise  until  later.  Rufus  was  the  first 
to  come  and  she  thought  it  strange  that  he 
should  break  down  and  sob  while  Ovid's  eyes 
were  dry  and  hard.  Knowing  the  servants,  he 
undertook  to  tell  them  what  had  happened  to 
their  master.  Their  noisy  grief  throughout  the 
house  brought  a  dreary  sense  of  disorder.  Sextus 
Pompeius  arrived  and  characteristically  out  of 
the  chaos  of  grief  plucked  the  need  of  practical 
preparation  for  the  long  journey.  He  brought 
out  maps  and  went  over  each  stage  of  the  way. 
Only  the  sea  journey  from  Brindisi  to  Corinth 
would  be  familiar  to  Ovid,  but  Pompeius  had 
seen  many  years  of  military  service  in  various 
northern  stations,  from  the  Hellespont  to  the 
Danube,  and  knew  what  to  recommend.  Al- 
though Tomi  was  a  seaport,  he  advised  making 
the  last  part  of  the  journey  by  land  through 
Thrace.  He  knew  what  dangers  to  fear  from 
the  natives,  what  precautions  to  take  against 


A  Roman  Citizen  127 

sickness,  and  what  private  supplies  a  traveller 
might  advantageously  carry  with  him.  They 
made  a  list  of  necessary  things  and  Pompeius 
sent  some  of  Ovid's  servants  out  to  procure  what 
they  could  before  night.  The  rest  could  be  sent 
on  to  Brindisi  before  the  ship  sailed.  He  would 
see  to  that,  Fabia  need  have  no  care.  It  was  a 
great  disadvantage  that  they  could  not  control 
the  choice  of  the  travelling  companions,  but  he 
would  go  at  once  and  see  if  he  could  exercise 
any  influence. 

The  packing  consumed  several  hours.  This 
unemotional  activity  would  have  strengthened 
Fabia,  had  it  not  had  a  completely  unnerving 
effect  on  Ovid.  The  preparations  for  a  wild  and 
dangerous  country  seemed  to  bring  him  face  to 
face  with  despair.  He  rushed  to  the  fire  and 
threw  upon  it  the  thick  manuscript  of  his 
Metamorphoses.  Looking  sullenly  at  the  smould- 
ering parchment  he  began  to  talk  wildly,  pro- 
testing first  that  no  one  should  see  any  of  his 
work  unfinished  and  then  passing  to  a  paroxysm 
of  rage  against  all  his  poetry,  to  which  he  attrib- 
uted his  ruin.  He  began  to  walk  up  and  down 


128  Roads  from  Rome 

the  room,  pushed  his  wife  aside,  and  declared 
that  he  was  going  to  end  his  life.  In  the  long 
nightmare  Fabia  found  this  hour  the  most 
terrifying.  She  could  never  express  her  gratitude 
to  Celsus  who  had  come  after  Pompeius  left  and 
who  now  alone  proved  able  to  influence  Ovid. 
By  a  patient  reasonableness  he  made  headway 
against  his  hysterical  mood,  bringing  him  back, 
step  by  step,  to  saner  thoughts. 

The  servants,  stimulated  to  their  duties  by 
Rufus,  brought  in  food.  Fabia  made  Ovid  eat 
some  bread  and  fruit.  The  evening  wore  on. 
The  December  moon  was  mounting  the  sky. 
Voices  and  footsteps  of  passers-by  were  vaguely 
heard.  In  the  distance  a  dog  barked  incessantly. 
Lights  were  lit,  but  the  usual  decorum  of  the 
house  was  broken.  The  fire  died  dully  upon  the 
hearth.  The  children  were  brought  into  the 
room,  looking  pale  and  worn  with  the  unwonted 
hour.  Midnight  came  and  went.  All  sounds  of 
the  city  died  away.  Even  the  dog  ceased  his 
howling.  They  were  alone  with  disaster.  Ovid 
went  to  the  window  and  drew  aside  the  heavy 
curtain.  The  moon  rode  high  over  the  Capitol. 


A  Roman  Citizen  129 

Suddenly  he  stretched  out  his  arms  and  they 
heard  him  praying  to  the  great  gods  of  his 
country.  In  this  moment  Fabia's  self-control, 
like  a  dam  too  long  under  pressure,  gave  way. 
Except  on  ceremonial  occasions  she  had  never 
heard  her  husband  pray.  Now,  he  who  had  had 
the  heart  of  a  child  for  Rome  and  for  her  was 
cast  out  by  Rome  and  was  beyond  her  help. 
From  her  breast  he  must  turn  to  the  indifferent 
gods  in  heaven.  She  broke  into  hard,  terrible 
sobs  and  threw  herself  down  before  the  hearth, 
kissing  the  grey  ashes.  Unregardful  of  those 
about  her,  she  prayed  wildly  to  the  lesser  gods 
of  home,  her  gods.  From  the  temple  on 
the  Capitoline,  from  the  Penates  came  no  an- 
swer. 

His  friends  began  to  urge  Ovid  to  start.  His 
carriage  was  ready,  he  must  run  no  risk  of  not 
clearing  Rome  by  daylight.  Why  should  he  go, 
he  asked  with  a  flicker  of  his  old  vivacity,  when 
to  go  meant  leaving  Rome  and  turning  toward 
Scythia?  He  called  the  children  to  him  and 
talked  low  to  them  of  their  mother.  Again  his 
friends  urged  him.  Three  times  he  started  for 


130  Roads  from  Rome 

the  door  and  three  times  he  came  back.  At  the 
end  Fabia  clung  to  him  and  beat  upon  his  shoul- 
ders and  declared  she  must  go  with  him.  What 
was  Augustus's  command  to  her?  Love  was  her 
Caesar.  Rufus  came  and  drew  her  away.  The 
door  opened.  The  cold  night  air  swept  the 
atrium.  She  caught  sight  of  Ovid's  face,  haggard 
and  white  against  the  black  mass  of  his  dis- 
hevelled hair.  His  shoulders  sagged.  He 
stumbled  as  he  went  out.  She  was  conscious  of 
falling,  and  knew  nothing  more. 

Ill 

Ovid's  second  birthday  in  exile  had  passed. 
The  hope  of  an  early  release,  harboured  at  first 
by  his  family  and  friends,  had  died  away. 
None  of  them  knew  what  the  "blunder"  or 
"crime"  was  which  had  aroused  the  anger  of 
Augustus,  and  every  effort  to  bring  into  high 
relief  the  innocence  of  Ovid's  personal  life  and 
his  loyalty  to  the  imperial  family  simply  made 
them  more  cognisant  of  a  mystery  they  could 
not  fathom.  Access  to  Caesar  was  easy  to  some 


A  Roman  Citizen  131 

of  them,  and  through  Marcia,  Maximus's  wife, 
they  had  hoped  to  reach  Livia.  But  these  high 
personages  remained  inscrutable  and  relentless. 
At  times  it  seemed  as  if  even  Tiberius,  although 
long  absent  from  the  city,  might  be  playing  a 
sinister  role  in  the  drama.  All  that  was  clear 
was  that  some  storm-wind  from  the  fastnesses  of 
the  imperial  will  had  swept  through  the  gaiety 
of  Rome  and  quenched,  like  a  candle,  the  bright 
life  of  her  favourite  poet.  It  was  easy  to  say  that 
an  astonishing  amount  of  freedom  was  still 
Ovid's.  His  books  had  been  removed  from  the 
public  libraries,  but  the  individual's  liberty  to 
own  or  read  them  was  in  no  way  diminished. 
Nor  was  the  publication  of  new  work  frowned 
upon.  In  the  autumn  before  his  banishment 
Ovid  had  given  out  one  or  two  preliminary 
copies  of  his  Metamorphoses,  and  his  friends  now 
insisted  that  a  work  so  full  of  charm,  so  charac- 
teristic of  his  best  powers,  so  innocent  of  ques- 
tionable material  should  be  published/  even  if  it 
had  not  undergone  a  final  revision.  The  author 
sent  back  from  Tomi  some  lines  of  apology  and 
explanation  which  he  wished  prefixed.  He  also 


132  Roads  from  Rome 

arranged  with  the  Sosii  for  the  bringing  out  of 
his  work  on  the  Roman  Calendar  when  he  should 
have  completed  it.  And  he  was  at  liberty  not 
only  to  keep  up  whatever  private  correspondence 
he  chose,  but  to  have  published  a  new  set  of 
elegiac  poems  in  the  form  of  frank  letters  about 
his  present  life  to  his  wife  and  friends.  A  third 
volume  of  these  poems,  which  he  called  Tristia, 
had  just  appeared  and  more  were  likely  to  follow. 
He  had  an  extraordinary  instinct  for  self- 
revelation. 

But  in  spite  of  this  freedom  to  raise  his  voice 
in  Rome,  it  was  obvious  that  all  that  made  life 
dear  to  Ovid  had  been  taken  away.  The  lover 
of  sovereign  Rome,  of  her  streets  and  porticoes 
and  theatres,  her  temples  and  forums  and 
gardens,  must  live  at  the  farthest  limit  of  the 
Empire,  in  a  little  walled  town  from  whose 
highest  towers  a  constant  watch  was  kept 
against  the  incursions  of  untamed  barbarians. 
The  poet  to  whom  war  had  meant  the  brilliance 
of  triumphal  pageants  in  the  Sacred  Way  must 
now  see  the  rude  farmers  of  a  Roman  colony 
borne  off  as  captives  or  sacrificing  to  the  enemy 


A  Roman  Citizen  133 

their  oxen  and  carts  and  little  rustic  treasures. 
The  man  of  fifty  who  had  spent  his  youth  in 
writing  love  poetry  and  who  through  all  his  life 
had  had  an  eye  for  Venus  in  the  temple  of  Mars 
must  wear  a  sword  and  helmet,  and  dream  at 
night  of  poisoned  arrows  and  of  fetters  upon 
his  wrists.  The  son  of  the  Italian  soil,  bred  in 
warmth,  his  eye  accustomed  to  flowers  and 
brooks  and  fertile  meadows,  must  shiver  most  of 
the  year  under  bitter  north  winds  sweeping  over 
the  fields  of  snow  which  melted  under  neither 
sun  nor  rain;  and  in  spring  could  only  watch  for 
the  breaking  up  of  the  ice  in  the  Danube,  the 
restoration  of  the  gloomy  plains  to  their  crop 
of  wormwood,  and  the  rare  arrival  of  some  brave 
ship  from  Italy  or  Greece.  The  acknowledged 
master  of  the  Latin  tongue,  the  courted  talker 
in  brilliant  circles  in  Rome  must  learn  to  write 
and  speak  a  barbarous  jargon  if  he  wished  to 
have  any  intercourse  with  his  neighbours.  The 
husband  with  the  heart  of  a  child,  whose  little 
caprices  and  moods,  whose  appetite  and  health 
had  been  the  concern  of  tender  eyes,  must 
learn  to  be  sick  without  proper  food  or  medicine 


134  Roads  from  Rome 

or  nursing,  must  before  his  time  grow  old  and 
grey  and  thin  and  weak,  dragged  from  the  covert 
of  a  woman's  love. 

It  was  spring  again  and  the  late  afternoon  air, 
which  came  through  the  open  window  by  which 
Fabia  was  sitting,  was  sweet  with  the  year's 
new  hope,  even  though  borne  over  city  roofs. 
Fabia  had  dwelt  with  sorrow  day  and  night  until 
there  was  no  one  of  its  Protean  shapes  which 
she  did  not  intimately  know.  She  had  even 
attained  to  a  certain  tolerance  of  her  own 
hysteria  that  first  night  when  her  uncle  and  her 
servants  had  had  to  care  for  her  till  morning. 
It  was  the  last  service  she  had  required  of  others. 
Her  daughter  had  hurried  to  her  and  spent 
weeks  with  her  in  watchful  companionship. 
Perilla  had  come  back  in  the  summer  and  gone 
with  her  to  Sulmo.  But  neither  the  love  of  the 
one  child  nor  the  grief  of  the  other  passed  into 
the  citadel  where  her  will  stood  at  bay  before 
the  beleaguering  troops  of  pain.  They  were 
newer  to  her  than  they  usually  are  to  a  woman 
of  her  age.  The  death  of  her  child's  father  had 


A  Roman  Citizen  135 

brought  regret  rather  than  sorrow.  Her  will 
had  been  disciplined  only  by  the  habitual  per- 
formance of  simple  duties  which  had  given  her 
happiness.  But  untaught,  unaided,  it  slew  her 
enemies  and  left  her  victor.  Her  daughters  had 
long  since  given  over  worrying  about  her,  had, 
indeed,  begun  to  draw  again  upon  her  generous 
stores.  Only  her  uncle,  who  knew  the  cost  of 
warfare  better,  still  silently  watched  her  eyes. 
He  knew  that  her  victory  had  to  be  won  afresh 
every  night  as  soon  as  the  aegis  of  the  day  was 
lifted.  For  a  long  time  this  had  meant  nights  of 
dry-eyed  anguish,  which  threatened  her  sanity, 
or  nights  of  weakening  tears.  Through  these 
months  her  uncle  had  come  to  see  her  every 
day.  He  had  not  doubted  the  strength  of  her 
will,  but  he  had  feared  that  the  strength  of  her 
body  might  be  sacrificed  to  its  triumph.  Her 
long  days  of  self-control,  however,  repaired  the 
ravages  of  the  night  hours,  and  little  by  little 
her  strong  mind,  from  which  she  had  resolutely 
withheld  all  narcotics,  reasserted  its  sway  over 
her  nerves.  She  recovered  her  power  to  think. 
To  her  a  clear  understanding  of  principles  by 


136  Roads  from  Rome 

which  she  was  to  decide  the  details  of  conduct 
had  always  been  essential. 

To-day,  in  this  favourite  hour  of  hers,  when  the 
mask  laid  by  a  busy  day  over  the  realities  of 
life  began  to  be  gently  withdrawn,  she  had  set 
herself  the  task  of  analysing  certain  thoughts 
which  had  been  with  her  hazily  for  over  a  week. 
On  Ovid's  birthday  she  had  sent  little  presents 
to  the  grandchildren  and  written  to  her  step- 
daughter a  letter  which  she  hoped  would  make 
her  feel  that  she  was  still  the  daughter  of  her 
father's  house.  In  doing  this  she  had  been 
poignantly  reminded  of  the  birthday  fete  two 
years  ago,  of  Perilla's  sweetness  to  her,  and  of 
their  conversation,  so  light-hearted  at  the  time, 
about  woman's  place  in  the  state.  Since  then 
she  had  been  wondering  whether  she  could  still 
say  that  it  was  enough  for  her  to  be  a  wife. 
She  was  perfectly  sure  that  she  did  not  miss  the 
outer  satisfactions  of  being  Ovid's  wife.  Except 
as  they  indicated  his  downfall,  she  did  not  regret 
the  loss  of  her  former  place  in  society  or  the 
desertion  of  many  of  their  so-called  friends. 
Indeed,  she  had  welcomed  as  her  only  comfort 


A  Roman  Citizen  137 

whatever  share  she  could  have  in  his  losses. 
But  was  it  true  that  her  life  as  a  whole  had  no 
meaning  or  value  apart  from  his?  Had  the 
hard,  solitary  fight  to  be  brave  meant  nothing 
except  that  she  could  write  her  husband  stim- 
ulating letters  and  help  his  child  to  take  up 
again  the  joys  of  youth?  She  had  found  and 
tested  powers  in  herself  that  were  not  Ovid's. 
What  meaning  was  there  in  her  phrase — "The 
wife  of  a  Roman  citizen?"  She  began  to  think 
over  Ovid's  idea  of  citizenship.  Suddenly  she 
realised,  in  one  of  those  flashes  that  illuminate 
a  series  of  facts  long  taken  for  granted,  that  the 
time  he  had  shown  most  emotion  over  being  a 
citizen  was  on  the  night  he  had  left  home,  when 
he  had  insisted  that  he  still  retained  his  property 
and  his  rights.  Before  that  indeed,  on  the  annual 
occasions  when  the  Emperor  reviewed  the 
equestrian  order  and  he  rode  on  his  beautiful 
horse  in  the  procession,  he  had  always  come  home 
in  a  glow  of  enthusiasm.  But  she  had  often 
felt  vaguely,  even  then,  that  the  citizen's  pride 
was  largely  made  up  of  the  courtier's  devotion 
to  a  ruler,  the  artist's  delight  in  a  pageant  and 


138  Roads  from  Rome 

the  favourite's  pleasure  in  applause  in  which  he 
had  a  personal  share.  That  he  loved  Rome  she 
had  never  doubted.  He  loved  the  external  city 
because  it  was  fair  to  the  eye.  He  loved  Roman 
life  because  it  was  free  from  all  that  was  rustic, 
because  it  gave  the  prizes  to  wit  and  imagination 
and  refinement.  The  culture  of  Athens  had  at 
last  become  domiciled  in  the  capital  of  a  world- 
empire.  Ovid's  idea  of  citizenship,  Fabia  said 
to  herself,  was  to  live,  amid  the  beauties  of  this 
capital  and  in  the  warmth  of  imperial  and 
popular  favour,  freely,  easily,  joyfully. 

And  what  was  her  own  idea?  Fabia  s  mind 
fled  back  to  the  days  when  she  was  a  little  girl 
in  Falerii  and  her  uncle  used  to  come  to  the 
nursery  after  his  dinner  and  take  her  on  his 
lap  and  tell  her  stories  until  she  was  borne  off  to 
bed.  The  stories  had  always  been  about  brave 
people,  and  her  nurse  used  to  scold,  while  she 
undressed  her,  about  her  flushed  cheeks  and 
shining  eyes.  The  procession  of  these  brave 
ones  walked  before  her  now,  as  a  child's  eyes 
had  seen  them — Horatius,  Virginia,  Lucretia, 
Decius,  Regulus,  Cato — men  and  women  who 


A  Roman  Citizen  139 

had  loved  the  honour  and  virtue  demanded  by 
Rome,  or  Rome's  safety  better  than  their  lives. 
The  best  story  of  all  had  been  the  one  about 
her  own  ancestors,  the  three  hundred  and  six 
Fabii  who,  to  establish  their  country's  power, 
fought  by  the  River  Cremera  until  every  man 
was  dead. 

She  had  grown  old  enough  to  read  her  own 
stories,  to  marry,  and  to  tell  stories  to  a  child 
and  to  grandchildren,  but  the  time  had  never 
come  when  her  heart  had  not  beat  quicker  at  the 
thought  of  men  sacrificing  their  life  or  their 
children,  their  will  or  their  well-being  to  their 
country's  need.  She  had  become  a  widely  read 
woman  in  both  Latin  and  Greek.  Her  reason 
told  her  that  appreciation  of  beauty  in  nature  and 
art,  grace  and  elegance  in  manners,  intellectual 
freedom  and  a  zest  for  individual  development 
were  essential  factors  in  the  progress  of  civilisa- 
tion. She  knew  that  if  her  husband  had  not 
believed  in  these  things  he  could  not  have  been 
the  poet  he  was,  and  she  knew  his  poetry  had 
done  something  for  Roman  letters  that  Virgil's 
had  not  done.  She  had  not  only  loved,  with  all 


140  Roads  from  Rome 

the  pure  passion  of  her  maturity,  his  charm  and 
his  blitheness  and  his  gifted  sensitiveness,  but 
she  had  been  proud  of  his  achievements.  His 
citizenship  had  satisfied  her.  But  always, 
within  the  barriers  of  her  own  individuality, 
that  faith  which  is  deeper,  warmer,  more  mas- 
terly than  reason,  had  kept  her  the  reverent 
lover  of  duty,  the  passionate  guardian  of  char- 
acter, for  whose  sake  she  would  deny  not  only 
ease  and  joy,  but,  even,  if  the  dire  need  came, 
beauty  itself.  Art  the  Romans  had  had  to  bor- 
row. Their  character  they  had  hewn  for  them- 
selves, with  a  chisel  unknown  to  the  Greeks,  out 
of  the  brute  mass  of  their  instincts.  Its  con- 
stancy, its  dignity,  its  magnanimity,  probity 
and  fidelity  Cicero  had  described  in  words  be- 
fitting their  massive  splendour.  To  possess  this 
character  was  to  be  a  Roman  citizen,  in  the 
Forum  and  on  the  battlefield,  in  the  study  and 
the  studio,  in  exile  and  in  prison,  in  life  and  in 
death.  Ovid's  citizenship,  save  for  the  empty 
title,  had  been  ended  by  an  imperial  decree. 
In  losing  Rome  he  had  ceased  to  be  a  Roman. 
His  voice  came  back  only  in  cries  in  which  there 


A  Roman  Citizen  141 

was  no  dignity  and  no  fortitude.  He  was  tiring 
out  his  friends.  Perilla  no  longer  let  Fidus  see 
his  letters.  Even  in  her  own  heart  the  sharpest 
sorrow  was  not  his  exile  but  his  defeat.  Her 
love  had  outlived  her  pride. 

The  dreaded  night  was  coming  on.  Would 
he  moan  in  his  sleep  again,  without  her  quieting 
hand  upon  his  face,  or  wake  from  dreams  of  her 
to  loneliness?  She  rose  impetuously  and  looked 
up  through  the  narrow  window.  The  sky  was 
filled  with  the  brightness  of  the  April  sunset. 
Of  pain  she  was  no  longer  afraid.  But  she  was 
afraid  to  go  on  fighting  with  nothing  to  justify 
the  cost  of  her  successive  battles  or  to  glorify 
their  result.  Against  the  sunset  sky  rose  the 
Capitol.  Burnished  gold  had  been  laid  upon  its 
austere  contours.  Strength  was  aflame  with 
glory.  She  never  knew  how  or  why,  but  sud- 
denly an  answering  flame  leaped  within  her. 
In  that  majestic  temple  dwelt  the  omnipotent 
gods  of  her  country.  Why  should  all  her  prayers 
be  said  to  the  Penates  on  her  hearth?  What  did 
her  country  need,  save,  in  manifold  forms,  which 
obliterated  the  barriers  of  sex,  the  sacrifice  of 


142  Roads  from  Rome 

self,  the  performance  of  duty,  the  choice  of 
courage?  The  feverish  talk  of  women  about 
their  independence  had  failed  to  hold  her  at- 
tention. Now  a  mightier  voice,  borne  from  the 
graves  of  the  dead,  trumpeted  from  the  lives  of 
the  living,  called  to  her,  about  the  warring  of 
her  will  with  sorrow,  to  be  a  Roman  citizen. 
She  had  neither  arms  nor  counsels  to  give  to  her 
country.  She  could  not  even  give  sons  born  of 
her  body,  taught  of  her  spirit.  She  was  a  woman 
alone,  she  was  growing  old,  she  was  ungifted. 
She  would  be  nothing  but  a  private  in  the  ranks, 
an  obscure  workman  among  master  builders. 
But  she  could  offer  her  victory  over  herself,  and 
ask  her  country  to  take  back  and  use  a  character 
hewn  and  shaped  in  accordance  with  its  tradi- 
tions. Her  husband's  citizenship  had  become  a 
legal  fable.  She  would  take  it  and  weld  it  with 
her  own,  and,  content  never  to  know  the  out- 
come, lay  them  both  together  upon  the  altar  of 
Rome's  immortal  Spirit. 

The  new  moon  hung  in  the  still  radiant 
west.  On  a  moonlit  night  she  had  fallen  by 
the  ashes  of  her  hearth  and  prayed  in  futile 


A  Roman  Citizen  143 

agony  to  the  gods  of  her  home.  Now  she  stood 
erect  and  looked  out  upon  the  city  and  with  a 
solemn  faith  prayed  to  the  greater  gods.  Later 
she  slept  peacefully,  for  the  first  time  in  fifteen 
months,  as  one  whose  taskmaster  has  turned 
comrade. 

In  the  morning  her  uncle,  who  had  been  in 
Falerii  for  a  few  weeks,  came  to  see  her.  He 
looked  keenly  into  her  eyes  as  she  hastened 
across  the  wide  room  to  greet  him.  Then  his  own 
eyes  flashed  and  with  a  sudden  glad  movement 
he  bent  and  kissed  her  hands.  "Heart  of  my 
heart,"  he  said,  "in  an  exile's  house  I  salute 
a  Roman." 


FORTUNE'S  LEDGER 


IS  Lady  of  Gifts  smiled  at  him  and 
held  out  her  hand  with  something 
shut  tight  inside  of  it.  The  white 
fingers  were  just  about  to  open  into 
his  palm,  when  he  felt  his  mother's  hand  on 
his  and  heard  her  say:  "Come,  Marcus,  come, 
the  sun  will  get  ahead  of  you  this  morning." 
He  knew  that  she  had  kissed  his  eyes  and  hur- 
ried away  again  before  he  could  open  them  upon 
the  faint,  grey  light  in  his  tiny  room.  A  piercing 
thought  put  an  end  to  sleepiness  and  brought 
him  swiftly  from  his  bed.  This  was  the  day  of 
his  Lady's  festival !  His  mother  seemed  to  have 
forgotten  it,  but  he  could  say  a  prayer  for  her 
as  well  as  for  himself  at  the  shrine  by  the 
Spring.  He  must  make  haste  now,  however, 
for  before  the  June  sun  should  fairly  have 

come  up  over  the  tops  of  the  hills  he  must  get 
144 


Fortune's  Ledger  145 

his  sheep  and  goats  to  their  pasture  on  the  lower 
slopes. 

When  he  had  slipped  into  his  blue  cotton 
tunic,  which  reached  just  to  his  knees,  leaving 
bare  his  stout  brown  legs,  he  went  into  his 
mother's  room  and  plunged  his  head  into  a 
copper  basin  of  water  standing  ready  for  his  use. 
Shaking  the  drops  from  his  black  curls,  he  has- 
tened on  to  the  kitchen  for  his  porridge.  His 
grandfather  was  already  there,  sitting  in  his 
large  chair,  mumbling  half-heard  words  to  him- 
self, while  his  daughter-in-law  dipped  out  his 
breakfast  from  a  pot  hung  over  a  small  fire  laid 
frugally  in  the  middle  of  the  wide,  stone  hearth. 
Marcus  went  up  to  him  and  kissed  his  forehead 
before  he  threw  his  arms  around  the  neck  of  the 
big  white  sheep-dog  which  had  leaped  forward 
as  he  entered.  His  mother  smiled  out  of  her 
tired  eyes  as  she  gave  him  his  morning  portion, 
and  then  began  to  wrap  up  in  a  spotless  napkin 
the  dry  bread  and  few  olives  which  were  to  be 
his  lunch  in  the  pasture.  When  the  last  bit  of 
hot  porridge  and  the  cup  of  goat's  milk  had  been 
finished,  he  kissed  her  hand,  gave  the  signal  to 


146  Roads  from  Rome 

the  impatient  dog,  and  ran  across  the  courtyard 
to  the  fold  where  his  meagre  flock  awaited  their 
release.  The  sky  was  turning  pink  and  gold,  the 
sweet  air  of  dawn  filled  his  nostrils  and,  in  spite 
of  his  mother's  forgetfulness,  he  knew  that  on 
this  day  of  all  days  in  the  year  Good  Fortune 
might  be  met  by  mortals  face  to  face.  As  he 
and  his  dog  marshalled  the  sheep  and  goats  out 
of  the  gate,  he  turned  happily  toward  the  long, 
hard  road  which  to  him  was  but  a  pathway  to 
his  upland  pasture  and  his  Lady's  shrine. 

His  mother  came  to  the  gate  and  watched  the 
springing  step  with  which  he  met  the  day.  Her 
most  passionate  desire  was  that  he  might, 
throughout  his  life,  be  spared  the  sorrow,  the 
disillusionment  and  the  exhaustion  which  were 
her  daily  portion.  But  what  chance  was  there 
of  such  a  desire  being  fulfilled?  A  cry  from  the 
house,  half  frightened,  half  peevish,  called  her 
back  from  dreams  to  duties. 

Marcus  was  the  last  child  of  a  long  line  of 
independent  farmers.  When  he  was  born  his 
father  was  sharing  with  his  grandfather  the 
management  of  a  prosperous  estate.  But  before 


Fortune1  s  Ledger  1 47 

Marcus  could  talk  plainly  the  crash  had  come. 
It  seemed  incredible  that  the  Emperor  in  Rome 
should  have  known  anything  about  the  owners 
of  a  farm  in  Como.  But  Domitian's  evil  nature 
lay  like  a  blight  over  the  whole  empire,  and  his 
cruelty,  mean-spirited  as  well  as  irrational,  was 
as  likely  to  touch  the  low  as  the  high.  Angered 
by  some  officer's  careless  story  of  an  insolent 
soldier's  interview  with  Marcus's  grandfather, 
he  used  a  spare  moment  to  order  the  confiscation 
of  the  rich  acres  and  the  slaves  of  the  farm,  and 
the  imprisonment  of  their  owner.  The  imprison- 
ment had  been  short,  as  no  one  was  concerned 
to  continue  it  after  Domitian's  death.  But  it 
had  been  long  enough  to  break  the  victim's 
spirit  and  hasten  his  dotage.  By  this  time  he 
knew  almost  nothing  of  what  went  on  around 
him.  He  did  not  know  that  Domitian  had  been 
killed  and  that  at  last  men  breathed  freely  under 
the  good  Trajan.  He  was  still  full  of  old  fears, 
pathetically  unable  to  grasp  the  joy  of  this 
tranquillity,  which,  like  recreative  sunshine, 
penetrated  to  every  corner  of  the  exhausted  em- 
pire. Nor,  in  fretting  over  the  absence  of  his 


148  Roads  from  Rome 

son,  did  he  remember  the  brave  fight  that  he 
had  made  for  a  livelihood  as  a  muleteer  in  the 
Alps  just  above  Como,  nor  the  manner,  almost 
heroic,  of  his  death. 

The  burden  fell  upon  Marcus's  young  mother. 
It  was  no  wonder  that  her  eyes  were  always 
tired,  her  hands  rough  and  red,  and  her  shoulders 
no  longer  straight.  The  actual  farmstead  had 
been  left  to  them,  but  its  former  comfort  now 
imposed  only  a  heavy  load.  Once  the  servants 
had  been  almost  as  numerous  as  in  the  great 
villas  along  the  lake.  There  had  been  stables 
for  oxen  and  horses  and  sheep,  lofts  full  of  hay 
and  corn,  spacious  tool-rooms,  store-rooms  for 
olive  oil  and  fruits  and  wine,  hen-yards  and 
pigsties,  and  generous  quarters  for  the  workmen. 
Most  of  this  was  now  falling  into  decay,  year  by 
year.  Only  a  few  bedrooms  were  used — the 
smallest  and  warmest — and  the  great  kitchen 
was  the  only  living  room.  It  had  been  large 
enough  for  all  the  farm-servants  to  eat  in  and 
for  the  spinning  and  weaving  of  the  women. 
Now  the  family  of  three  gathered  lonesomely 
close  to  the  hearth  when  a  rare  fire  was  indulged 


Fortune's  Ledger  149 

in  on  stormy  winter  nights.  The  only  source 
of  income  were  the  few  sheep  and  goats  and 
hens.  In  the  old  days  great  flocks  of  sheep 
on  the  farm  had  sent  fleeces  to  Milan.  Now 
there  were  only  enough  to  furnish  lambs  on 
feast  days  and  occasional  fleeces  to  more  pros- 
perous neighbors.  The  few  goats  provided  the 
family  with  milk.  Far  oftener  than  anyone 
knew,  in  the  winters,  they  were  in  actual  distress, 
lacking  food  and  fuel. 

But  it  was  not  her  own  hunger  that  burdened 
the  nights  of  Marcus's  mother.  In  letting  her 
old  father-in-law  be  hungry  she  felt  that  she  was 
false  to  a  trust.  And  her  boy  must  be  saved  to 
a  happier  life  than  his  father's  had  been.  He  was 
eleven  years  old  and  must  soon,  if  ever,  turn  to 
something  better  than  tending  sheep  in  a  lonely 
pasture  from  sunrise  till  sunset.  She  did  not  let 
him  know  it,  thinking  that  he  was  too  young  to 
look  beyond  the  passing  days  in  which  he  seemed 
able  to  find  happiness,  but  she  had  laid  aside 
every  year,  heedless  of  the  sacrifice,  some  little 
part  of  the  scanty  money  that  came  from  the 
eggs  and  chickens.  What  she  could  do  with  it 


150  Roads  from  Rome 

she  did  not  know.  It  grew  so  slowly.  But  there 
was  always  the  hope  that  some  day  Marcus 
would  find  it  a  full-grown  treasure  to  face  the 
world  with.  When,  seven  years  ago,  the  great 
Pliny  had  given  to  Como  a  fund  to  educate  free- 
born  orphans,  she  had  thought  bitterly  that  her 
baby  would  be  better  off  without  her.  Some- 
times, since  then,  she  had  been  mad  enough  to 
think  of  trying  to  see  Pliny  when  he  came  to  the 
villa  which  was  nearest  to  her  farm.  He  was 
there  now.  Stories  of  his  magnificent  kindnesses 
were  rife.  His  tenants  were  the  most  contented 
in  the  country-side  and  his  slaves  were  better 
treated  than  many  Roman  citizens.  He  had 
given  his  old  nurse  a  little  farm  to  live  on  and 
sent  one  of  his  freedmen  to  Egypt  when  he  was 
threatened  with  consumption.  But  she  had 
never  found  the  courage — she  could  not  find  it 
now — to  believe  that  he  would  care  what  hap- 
pened to  a  child  in  no  way  connected  with  him. 
His  wealth,  by  no  means  the  largest  known  in 
his  own  circle,  to  her  seemed  appalling.  The 
Emperor  could  not  have  been  more  distant  from 
her  than  this  magnate,  who,  although  he  had 


Fortune's  Ledger  151 

been  born  in  Como  and  was  said  to  love  his 
Como  villas  better  than  any  of  his  other  houses, 
yet  had  about  him  the  awful  remoteness  of 
Rome.  Of  course  she  could  never  be  admitted 
to  his  presence.  She  could  only  store  up  a  few 
more  coins  each  year  and  trust  to  the  gods. 

With  a  start  she  realised  that  to-day  was  the 
festival  of  Fors  Fortuna.  In  the  hurried  morn- 
ing she  had  forgotten  to  remind  Marcus  of  his 
prayers.  In  the  days  when  the  farm  had  been 
sure  of  the  largest  harvest  in  the  neighbourhood 
this  summer  festival  had  been  brilliantly  cele- 
brated, and  as  long  as  Marcus's  father  had  lived 
the  family  had  still  cherished  the  quaint  rites 
and  the  merrymaking  of  a  holiday  especially 
dear  to  the  common  people  of  both  city  and 
country.  But  in  these  later  years  there  had  been 
neither  time  nor  money  for  any  fetes.  Piety, 
however,  was  still  left,  and  it  was  characteristic 
of  the  scrupulousness  persisting  in  Marcus's 
mother  through  all  the  demoralising  experiences 
of  poverty  that,  after  she  had  finished  the 
heavier  tasks,  she  should  set  to  work  to  mark  the 
religious  day  by  a  freshly  washed  cloth  upon  the 


152  Roads  from  Rome 

table,  with  a  bowl  of  red  roses  picked  from  the 
bush  that  grew  by  the  doorway,  and  a  gala 
supper  of  new-laid  eggs,  lentil  soup  and  goat's 
milk  cheese. 

In  the  meantime  Marcus  had  been  having 
adventures.  His  pasture  was  on  a  grassy  plateau 
of  a  mountain  slope,  edged  by  heavy  green 
cypresses  and  dotted  with  holm-oaks.  In  the 
woods  above  him  chestnut  and  walnut  trees 
showed  vividly  against  the  silver  olives.  Below 
stretched  the  shining  waters  of  the  Lacrian 
Lake.  Here,  while  the  sheep  browsed  happily, 
he  was  wont  to  feed  his  little  soul  on  dreams. 
Sitting  to-day  where  he  could  look  out  to  a 
distant  horizon,  his  blue  tunic  seeming  to  insert 
into  the  varied  greens  about  him  a  bit  of  colour 
from  sky  or  lake,  he  dug  his  toes  into  the  soft 
grass  and  for  the  hundredth  time  tried  to  think 
out  how  he  could  attain  his  heart's  desire.  He 
knew  exactly  what  that  was.  He  wanted  to  go 
to  school!  If  anyone  had  tried  to  find  out  why, 
he  would  have  discovered  in  the  boy's  mind  a 
tangled  mass  of  hopes — hopes  of  helping  his 
mother  and  owning  once  more  their  big  fields 


Fortunis  Ledger  153 

and  vineyards,  of  going  to  Rome  and  coming 
home  again,  rich  and  famous.  But  to  any 
glorious  future  school  was  the  portal,  of  that  he 
was  sure.  The  nearest  boys'  school  was  in 
Milan,  and  to  Milan  he  must  go.  The  golden 
fleece  on  the  borders  of  strange  seas,  the  golden 
apples  in  unknown  gardens,  never  seemed  to 
lords  of  high  adventure  more  remote  or  more 
desirable  than  a  provincial  school-room  thirty 
miles  away  seemed  to  this  little  shepherd.  He 
dreamed  of  it  by  day  and  by  night.  Last  night, 
when  the  Lady  of  the  Spring  held  out  her  hand 
to  him  he  had  been  sure  that  what  it  held  would 
help  him  to  go  to  Milan.  He  knew  he  must  have 
money,  and  that  was  why  he  had  never  told  his 
mother  what  he  wanted.  She  would  be  unhappy, 
he  knew,  that  she  could  not  give  it  to  him.  He 
wanted  her  to  think  that  he  asked  for  nothing 
better  than  to  mind  the  sheep  all  day.  Some- 
times his  heart  would  be  so  hot  with  desire  that 
only  tears  could  cool  it,  and  all  alone  in  the 
pasture  he  would  bury  his  face  in  the  grass  and 
sob  until  his  dog  came  and  licked  his  neck.  At 
other  times  it  was  his  pan's-pipe  that  brought 


154  Roads  from  Rome 

ease.  His  father  had  taught  him  to  play  on  it 
when  he  was  a  mere  baby,  and  sometimes  he 
would  forget  his  burden  in  making  high,  clear 
notes  come  out  of  the  slender  reeds.  To-day, 
especially,  tears  seemed  far  away,  and  he  piped 
and  piped  until  his  heart  was  at  rest,  and  the 
sun,  now  nearly  in  mid-heaven,  made  him  warm 
and  drowsy. 

An  hour  later  he  woke  with  a  start  into  a 
strange  noonday  silence.  Every  blade,  and  twig, 
and  flower,  was  hushed.  A  soft  white  light 
dimmed  the  brilliant  colours  of  the  day.  No 
sound  was  heard  from  bird  or  insect,  and  the 
only  movement  was  among  his  white  sheep, 
which  noiselessly,  like  a  distant  stream  of 
foamy  water,  seemed  to  flow  down  a  winding 
path.  The  goats  were  standing  quite  still. 
Suddenly  they  flung  up  their  heads,  as  if  at  an 
imperious  call,  and  in  wild  abandon  rushed 
toward  the  shadowy  woods  above.  The  dog,  as 
if  roused  from  a  trance,  gave  chase,  shattering 
the  silence  with  yelping  barks.  The  boy,  his 
heart  beating  violently,  followed.  It  took  all 
the  afternoon  to  collect  and  quiet  the  flock, 


Fortunis  Ledger  155 

and  when  Marcus  started  home  he  had  himself 
not  lost  the  awed  sense  of  a  Presence  in  his 
pasture.  The  nearness  seemed  less  familiar 
than  that  of  his  Lady  of  Gifts,  and  yet  she  must 
have  been  concerned  in  it,  for  the  thrill  that  re- 
mained with  him  was  a  happy  one. 

It  was  late,  but  to-day  more  than  ever  he 
must  stop  at  her  shrine.  Near  his  regular  path, 
below  a  narrow  gorge,  there  was  a  marvellous 
spring.  It  rose  in  the  mountains,  ran  down 
among  the  rocks,  and  was  received  in  an  artificial 
chamber.  After  a  short  halt  there,  it  fell  into 
the  lake  below.  The  extraordinary  thing  about 
it  was  that  three  times  in  each  day  it  increased 
and  decreased  with  regular  rise  and  fall.  One 
could  lie  beside  it  and  watch  its  measured 
movements.  Everybody  from  far  and  near 
came  to  see  it,  even  the  grand  people  from  the 
villas.  But  Marcus,  coming  in  the  early  morn- 
ing or  evening,  had  almost  never  met  anyone 
there  and  had  grown  to  feel  that  the  spot  was 
his  own.  In  the  dusk  or  at  dawn  it  often  seemed 
to  him  as  if  a  lovely  lady,  with  eyes  such  as  his 
mother  might  have  had,  came  up  out  of  the 


156  Roads  from  Rome 

spring  and  laid  smooth,  cool  hands  on  his  face. 
Because  the  Goddess  of  Gifts  had  become  asso- 
ciated in  his  mind  with  the  first  day  he  could 
remember  in  his  early  childhood — a  radiant  and 
merry  day — he  had  come  to  identify  with  her 
this  Lady  of  the  Spring,  who  alone  gave  romance 
to  the  harsher,  soberer  years  that  followed  his 
father's  death.  To-day  Marcus  could  have 
sworn  she  smiled  at  him  before  she  disappeared, 
as  the  water  receded  after  the  gushing  flow  which 
he  had  come  just  in  time  to  watch.  He  was 
rising  from  his  knees  when  his  eye  fell  upon  a 
strange,  green  gleam  upon  the  wet  rock.  For  a 
moment  he  thought  it  was  the  gleam  of  a  lizard's 
back,  but  as  he  took  the  little  object  into  his 
hand  he  realised  that  it  was  hard,  and  inert, 
and  transparent.  Even  in  the  dusk  he  could 
see  the  light  in  it.  It  almost  burned  in  his  hand. 
He  felt  sure  that  it  was  a  gift  from  his  Lady,  but 
he  did  not  stop  to  think  what  he  could  do  with  it. 
He  was  filled  with  happiness  just  in  looking  at  it. 
It  was  the  most  beautiful  thing  he  had  ever 
seen,  and  he  could  take  it  to  his  mother  and  it 
would  make  her  smile.  Full  of  joy,  he  hurried 


Fortune 's  Ledger  157 

homeward.  Even  on  ordinary  occasions  he 
loved  the  end  of  summer  days.  His  grandfather 
would  go  to  sleep  and  cease  saying  strange 
things,  and,  after  he  and  his  mother  had  finished 
the  evening  tasks  in  house  and  court-yard  and 
sheepfold,  they  would  sit  for  a  while  together  in 
the  warm  doorway,  and  she  would  tell  him  sto- 
ries of  his  father  and  of  many  other  people  and 
things.  Sometimes  when  he  leaned  against  her 
and  her  voice  grew  sweet  and  low  he  forgot  he 
was  a  man  and  a  shepherd. 

To-night  this  did  not  happen,  although  the 
air  was  sweet  with  roses,  and  the  stars  were 
large  and  bright.  Marcus  had  shown  his 
mother  the  green  marvel  and  told  her  how  the 
Lady  of  the  Spring  had  brought  it  out  to  him 
from  her  secret  recesses.  She  had  caught  her 
breath  and  turned  it  over  and  over,  and  then 
she  had  put  her  arms  close  round  him  and  ex- 
plained to  him  that  this  beautiful  thing  was  a 
jewel,  an  emerald,  and  must  have  belonged  in  a 
great  lady's  ring.  Her  father  had  been  a  gold- 
smith and  she  had  often  seen  such  jewels  in 
their  setting.  They  were  bought  with  great 


158  Roads  from  Rome 

sums  of  money,  and  to  lose  one  was  like  losing 
money.  And  that  was  true,  too,  of  finding  one. 
Money  must  be  returned  and  so  must  this. 

Money — money — his  head  swam.  Could  he 
have  bought  his  heart's  desire  with  the  little 
green  gleam?  He  put  his  head  on  his  mother's 
knee  and,  for  all  his  efforts,  a  sob  sounded 
in  his  throat.  She  lifted  him  up  against  her 
warm,  soft  breast,  and  her  hands  were  smoother 
and  cooler  than  his  Lady's,  and  he  told  her  all 
that  was  in  his  heart,  and  she  told  him  all  that 
was  in  hers,  for  him. 

Later  they  talked  like  comrades  and  partners 
about  the  emerald,  and  decided  that  it  must  be- 
long to  someone  in  Pliny's  villa,  either  to  Cal- 
purnia  herself  or  to  one  of  her  guests.  They 
agreed  that  they  could  not  sleep  until  it  was 
returned.  The  mother  had  to  stay  near  the 
sleeping  old  man,  but  the  villa  was  only  two 
miles  away,  the  neighbourhood  was  safe,  with  a 
dog  as  companion,  and  Marcus  was  a  fast 
walker  on  his  strong  bare  feet.  At  the  villa 
he  could  ask  for  Lucius,  who  came  to  the  farm 
twice  a  week  for  eggs  and  chickens.  "He  is  an 


Fortune's  Ledger  159 

old  servant,"  she  said,  "loyal  to  his  master 
and  friendly  toward  us.  He  is  sure  to  be  kind 
to  you.  I  will  do  the  jewel  up  in  a  little  package 
and  put  father's  seal  on  it,  and  you  can  trust  it 
to  him.  Be  sure  to  give  it  to  no  one  else." 

So  Marcus,  with  his  dog,  long  past  his  usual 
bed-time,  trudged  forth  into  the  night  whose 
cavernous  shadows  deepened  the  shadows  in 
his  little  heart.  The  worst  of  the  adventure 
was  walking  up  through  the  grounds  of  the 
villa  and  facing  the  porter  at  the  servants' 
door  and  asking  for  Lucius.  When  he  came,  the 
boy  thrust  the  package  into  his  hand,  stam- 
mered out  an  explanation,  and  ran  away  before 
the  bewildered  old  man  knew  what  had  hap- 
pened. On  the  way  home  the  dog  seemed  to 
share  his  master's  discouragement  and  left  un- 
challenged the  evening  music  of  the  bull-frogs. 
When  Marcus  stretched  his  tired  legs  out  in 
bed  he  thought  of  to-morrow  with  the  sheep 
again,  and  wondered  dully  why  his  Lady  and 
her  mysterious  comrade  in  the  pasture  had 
cheated  him.  His  mother,  going  into  the 
kitchen  to  see  that  the  wood  was  ready  for  the 


160  Roads  from  Rome 

morning,  snatched  the  red  roses  from  the  table 
spread  for  Fors  Fortuna  and  threw  them  fiercely 
on  the  ashes. 

II 

The  day  at  the  villa  had  been  the  most  trying 
one  of  a  trying  week  for  Pliny  and  Calpurnia. 
A  restful  house-party  of  their  dearest  friends 
had  been  spoiled  by  the  arrival  of  Quadratilla, 
heralded  by  one  of  her  incredible  letters  dated 
at  Baiae: 

"I  lost  at  the  dice  last  night,"  she  had  written. 
"The  dancers  from  Cadiz  had  thick  ankles. 
The  oysters  were  not  above  suspicion  and  the 
sows'-bellies  were  unseasoned.  We  have  ex- 
hausted the  love  affairs  and  debts  of  our  neigh- 
bours, and  made  each  other's  wills.  (I  am  to 
leave  my  money — I  rely  on  you  to  tell  Quadratus 
— to  a  curled  darling  here  who  hums  Alexandrian 
dance  tunes  divinely) .  And  we  have  discussed 
ad  nauseam  the  rainfall  in  Upper  Egypt,  the 
number  of  legions  on  the  Rhine  and  the  ships 
in  from  Africa.  That  clever  Spanish  friend 
of  yours — what  was  his  name? — Martial — was 


Fortune* s  Ledger  161 

quite  right  about  our  conversations.  It  is  a 
pity  he  had  to  pay  out  his  obol  for  the  longer 
journey  before  he  could  get  back  to  Rome. 

"My  digestion  demands  fresh  eggs  and  lettuce 
to  the  rhythm  of  hexameters.  Or  is  it  sapphics 
to  which  we  eat  this  year?  I  must  know  what 
the  next  crop  of  the  stylus  is  to  be.  I  cannot 
sleep  at  night  for  wondering  who  is  to  teach  in 
your  new  school.  Will  he  be  as  merry  a  guide 
as  your  Quintilian  was?  And  will  the  Como 
boys  become  sparkling  little  Plinies? 

"I  must  see  the  grown-up  Pliny's  noble  brow 
and  my  Calpurnia's  eyes — and  the  Tartarean 
frown  of  Tacitus,  who,  I  hear,  is  with  you. 
Quadratus  says  you  are  at  the  smallest  of  your 
Como  villas.  The  mood  suits  me.  At  Tusculum 
or  Tibur  or  Praeneste  or  Laurentum  you  might 
have  longed  for  me  in  vain.  In  your  Arcadian 
retreat  expect  me  on  the  tenth  day." 

The  hale  old  woman  took  a  terrible  advantage 
of  her  years  and  her  tongue  to  do  as  she  chose 
among  her  acquaintances.  And  Pliny  was  more 
or  less  at  her  mercy,  because  his  mother  and  she 
had  been  friends  in  their  girlhood,  and  because 


162  Roads  from  Rome 

her  grandson,  Quadratus,  was  among  the  closest 
of  his  own  younger  friends.  Unluckily,  too,  she 
had  taken  a  violent  fancy  to  Calpurnia.  She 
spared  her  none  of  her  flings,  but  evidently  in 
some  strange  way  the  exquisite  breeding  and 
candid  goodness  of  the  younger  woman  appealed 
to  her  antipodal  nature.  She  had  lived  riotously 
through  seven  imperial  reigns,  gambling,  own- 
ing and  exhibiting  pantomimes,  nourishing  all 
manner  of  luxurious  whims,  whether  the  state 
lay  gasping  under  a  Nero  or  Domitian,  or 
breathed  once  more  in  the  smile  of  Trajan.  Her 
liking  for  Calpurnia  was  of  a  piece,  her  ac- 
quaintances thought,  with  her  bringing  up  of  her 
grandson.  No  boy  in  Rome  had  had  an  austerer 
training.  He  was  never  allowed  to  mingle  with 
her  coarser  companions,  and  when  the  dice  were 
brought  in  she  always  sent  him  out  of  the  room — 
"back  to  his  books."  No  breath  of  scandal  had 
ever  touched  his  good  name,  and  his  tastes 
could  not  have  been  more  prudent,  his  grand- 
mother used  to  say,  with  uplifted  eyebrows,  had 
he  had  the  "inestimable  advantage  of  being 
brought  up  by  Pliny's  uncle." 


Fortune' 's  Ledger  163 

After  a  winter  and  spring  of  varied  activities 
the  friends  gathered  at  Pliny's  villa  had  eagerly 
looked  forward  to  a  brief  peace.  Pliny's  law 
business  had  been  unusually  exacting.  He 
had  worked  early  and  late,  and  made  a  series 
of  crucial  speeches,  and  when  spring  came  on 
he  had  allowed  neither  work  nor  social  demands 
to  interfere  with  his  attendance  at  the  almost 
numberless  literary  readings.  His  "conscien- 
tious and  undiscriminating  concern  for  dead  mat- 
ter, "  Quadratilla  once  said,  "rivalled  Charon's. " 
Calpurnia,  never  strong,  but  always  supple- 
menting at  every  turn  her  husband's  work,  had 
felt  especially  this  year  the  strain  of  Roman 
life.  Tacitus,  already  a  figure  in  the  literary 
world  through  his  Agricola  and  Germania,  had 
made  a  beginning  on  his  more  elaborate  His- 
tories and  been  enslaved  to  his  genius.  Pompeius 
Saturninus  and  his  clever  wife,  Cornelia,  were 
hoping  for  a  little  rustic  idleness  before  begin- 
ning the  summer  entertaining  at  their  place  in 
Tuscany.  The  group  under  Pliny's  roof  was 
completed  by  Calpurnia's  lovely  aunt,  Hispulla, 
and  Fannia,  whose  famous  ancestry  was  ac- 


164  Roads  from  Rome 

centuated  in  her  own  distinguished  character. 
Pliny's  old  schoolfellow,  Caninus  Rufus,  had 
come  to  his  adjacent  villa,  bringing  with  him 
their  common  friend,  Voconius  Romanus.  These 
friends  had  entered  upon  one  of  the  holiday 
seasons  rarely  granted  to  people  of  importance. 
Their  debts  to  the  worlds  of  business  or  society 
or  literature  held  in  abeyance,  they  were  lightly 
devoting  their  days  to  fishing  and  hunting, 
sailing  and  riding,  while  the  keenness  of  their 
intellectual  interests — they  belonged  to  a  very 
different  set  from  Quadratilla's — was  restfully 
tempered  and  the  sincerity  of  them  deepened 
by  a  thorough-going  intimacy. 

Upon  the  second  fortnight  of  this  life  Quadra- 
tilla  broke  like  a  thunder-squall.  Whatever 
feelings  had  prompted  her  to  leave  her  fashion- 
able resort,  her  mood  after  she  arrived  was 
characteristically  Bacchanal.  She  had  a  genius 
for  making  the  tenderest  feeling  or  the  deepest 
conviction  seem  absurd.  Rufus  did  not  know 
whether  to  be  more  angry  at  her  open  hint  to 
Pliny  that  his  childlessness  was  like  that  of  so 
many  millionaires  of  the  day,  a  voluntary  lure 


Fortune' s  Ledger  165 

for  the  attention  of  legacy  hunters,  or  at  her 
sardonic  inquiries  after  Tacitus's  dyspepsia. 
His  best  friends  knew  that  his  gloom  is- 
sued from  the  travail  of  a  mind  which  had 
sickened  mortally  under  Domitian  and  could 
not  find  in  the  present  tranquillity  more  than 
a  brief  interruption  to  the  madness  of  men  and 
the  wrath  of  gods.  It  was  not  that  Quadratilla 
failed  to  perceive  the  massive  intellectual  force 
of  Tacitus.  On  the  contrary,  she  enraged  Rufus' 
and  the  others  still  further  by  a  covert  irony 
about  Pliny's  classing  himself  as  a  man  of  letters 
with  the  historian,  an  innocent  vanity  which 
endeared  him  only  the  more  to  those  whose 
experience  of  his  loyal  and  generous  heart  left 
no  room  for  critical  appraisement  of  his  mental 
calibre. 

The  day  in  question  had  been  full  of  small 
annoyances.  Calpurnia,  wishing,  on  the  Feast 
of  Fors  Fortuna,  to  excuse  the  dining-room 
servants  from  a  noonday  attendance,  had  had  a 
luncheon  served  in  the  grotto  of  the  tidal  spring. 
Unluckily,  while  they  were  testing  the  ebb  and 
flow  by  putting  rings  and  other  small  objects  on 


1 66  Roads  from  Rome 

a  dry  spot  and  watching  the  water  cover  them, 
Quadratilla  lost  out  of  one  of  her  rings  a  very 
valuable  emerald.  From  that  moment  until  the 
stone  was  returned  by  Marcus  everybody's 
patience  had  been  strained  to  the  breaking 
point  by  the  old  lady's  peevish  temper.  After 
dinner,  when  they  were  sitting  in  the  loggia 
overlooking  the  lake,  which  lay  dark  and  still 
beneath  the  June  stars,  they  all  united  in  a 
tacit  effort  to  divert  her  attention.  Pliny  told 
a  story  of  some  neighbours  to  illustrate  that  the 
same  kind  of  courage  existed  in  the  middle  class 
as  in  the  aristocracy.  A  wife,  finding  that  her 
husband  was  wasting  away  with  an  incurable 
disease,  not  only  urged  him  to  end  his  life, 
but  joined  him  in  the  brave  adventure,  fas- 
tening his  weakened  body  to  hers  and  then 
leaping  with  him  from  a  window  overlooking 
the  lake. 

Fannia  agreed  enthusiastically  that  the  deed 
was  as  brave  as  the  one  by  which  her  famous 
grandmother  had  shown  her  husband  the  way 
to  meet  an  emperor's  command  to  die;  and  she 
went  on  to  say  that  she  and  Pliny  had  decided 


Fortune's  Ledger  167 

once  that  some  of  the  unknown  hours  of  Arria's 
life  were  as  courageous  as  the  final  one  of  death. 
"Mother  has  told  me  all  kinds  of  things  about 
her,"  she  said.  "Once  her  husband  and  son 
were  both  desperately  ill,  and  the  son  died.  It 
wasn't  safe  to  tell  grandfather,  and  grandmother 
went  through  it  all,  even  the  funeral,  without 
his  knowing  it.  She  would  go  into  his  room  and 
answer  questions  about  the  boy,  saying  he  had 
slept  well  and  eaten  more.  When  she  couldn't 
bear  it  any  longer  she  would  go  to  her  own 
room  and  give  way,  and  come  back  again,  calm 
and  serene,  to  nurse  her  husband." 

"I  wonder,"  said  Cornelia,  "if  blood  counted 
more  in  that  apparently  simpler  thing.  Do  you 
think  a  middle-class  woman  could  have  con- 
trolled herself  so  finely?"  Voconius  broke  in 
with  a  quick  answer:  "It  is  nothing  against 
Arria,  whose  memory  we  all  reverence,  if  I  say 
I  think  she  might.  It  seems  to  me  that  the  kind 
of  thing  that  only  an  aristocrat  could  do  was 
done  by  Corellius  Rufus.  It  isn't  a  matter  of 
courage  but  of  humour.  Tell  the  story,  Pliny. 
I  haven't  heard  it  since  the  year  he  died — let 


i68  Roads  from  Rome 

me  see,  seven  years  ago,  that  was.    It's  time  we 
heard  it  again." 

Tacitus  leaned  forward  to  listen  as  Pliny  will- 
ingly complied:  "Corellius  was,  you  know,  a 
Stoic  of  the  Stoics,  believing  in  suicide.  When 
the  doctors  had  assured  him  that  he  could  never 
be  cured  of  a  most  dreadful  disease,  all  his  rea- 
sons for  living,  his  wealth  and  position  and 
fame,  his  wife  and  daughter  and  grandchildren 
and  sisters  and  friends,  became  secondary  to  his 
reasons  for  dying.  He  had  held  the  disease  in 
check,  while  he  was  younger,  by  the  most  tem- 
perate living.  But  in  old  age  it  gained  on  him; 
he  was  bedridden  and  had  only  weakening  tor- 
ments to  face.  I  went  to  see  him  one  day  while 
Domitian  was  still  living.  His  wife  went  out 
of  the  room,  for,  although  she  had  his  full  confi- 
dence, she  was  tactful  enough  to  leave  him  alone 
with  his  friends.  He  turned  his  eyes  to  me  and 
said:  'Why  do  you  think  I  have  endured  this 
pain  so  long?  It  is  because  I  want  to  survive 
our  Hangman  at  least  one  day.'  As  soon  as  we 
were  rid  of  Domitian  he  began  to  starve  himself 
to  death.  I  agree  with  Voconius  that  only  an 


Fortune's  Ledger  169 

aristocrat  could  have  thought  of  outwitting  a 
tyrant  by  outliving  him." 

"It  is  a  pity,  is  it  not,"  said  Cornelia,  "that 
Juvenal  could  not  have  known  men  like  Corellius 
and  your  uncle,  Pliny,  and  all  the  rest  of  you? 
He  might  be  less  savage  in  his  attacks  on  our 
order."  "And  equally  a  pity,"  Pliny  gallantly 
responded,  "that  he  could  not  modify  his  views 
on  your  sex  by  knowing  such  ladies  as  are  in  this 
room."  Tacitus  bowed  gravely  to  Quadratilla 
as  their  host  said  this.  A  retort  trembled  on 
the  wicked  old  lips,  but  Calpurnia,  seeing  it, 
made  haste  to  ask  if  any  of  them  had  ever 
talked  with  Juvenal.  "I  asked  Martial  once," 
she  said,  "to  bring  him  to  see  us,  but  he  never 
came.  I  cannot  help  feeling  that,  if  he  could 
know  us  better,  his  arraignment  would  be  less 
harsh."  "Dear  Lady,"  said  Tacitus,  "you 
forget  that  people  like  you  are  cut  jewels,  very 
different  from  the  rough  rock  of  our  order  as 
well  as  from  the  shifting  sands  of  the  populace." 
"Dear  Cynic,"  laughed  Calpurnia,  "do  we 
know  any  more  about  the  populace  than  Juvenal 
knows  about  us?  " 


170  Roads  from  Rome 

But  in  Tacitus's  unfortunate  figure  Quad- 
ratilla  saw  her  chance  to  annoy  him  by  belittling 
the  conversation.  To  everyone's  despair,  she 
intruded  maliciously:  "To  my  thinking,  the 
finding  of  my  emerald  would  show  to  advantage 
the  cut  of  our  aristocratic  wits."  Cornelia  had 
just  whispered  to  Rufus,  "I  wish  we  could  lose 
her  as  adequately  out  of  our  setting,"  when 
Lucius  came  into  the  loggia  with  the  sealed 
package  for  Pliny.  A  question  from  his  master 
gave  him  a  chance  to  tell  Marcus's  story,  which 
lost  nothing  in  the  friendly,  rustic  narration.  A 
chorus  of  praise  for  the  boy  rose  from  the  eager 
listeners.  Even  Quadratilla  remarked  that  he 
was  a  decent  little  clod-hopper,  as  she  demanded 
a  lamp  by  which  to  examine  her  jewel.  Pliny 
and  Calpurnia's  eyes  met  in  swift  response  to 
each  other's  thoughts.  They  examined  the 
farmer's  seal  and  questioned  Lucius  more  closely. 
Calpurnia's  eyes  filled  with  tears  at  his  account 
of  the  old  grandfather — "ruined,"  she  exclaimed 
to  the  others,  "in  the  very  month  that  Pliny's 
name,  as  we  afterwards  discovered,  was  put  on 
the  prescription  list.  We  were  so  anxious  at 


Fortune'' s  Ledger  171 

the  time — that  must  explain  our  never  follow- 
ing the  family  up.  I  will  go  early  to-morrow," 
she  added,  turning  to  her  husband,  "and  see  the 
mother.  We  must  make  up  for  lost  time." 
"Find  out,"  said  Pliny,  "whether  the  boy  wants 
to  go  to  school." 

A  cackle  of  laughter  came  from  Quadratilla's 
chair  back  of  the  group  that  had  gathered 
around  the  servant.  "How  like  my  Pliny!" 
she  remarked  genially.  "A  dirty  little  rascal 
restores  my  property  in  the  hope  of  picking  up 
a  reward.  His  heart's  desire  is  doubtless  a  strip 
of  bacon  for  his  stomach  on  a  holiday.  And 
Pliny  offers  him  an  education!" 

Ill 

Marcus  had  been  in  his  pasture  for  many  an 
hour  when  Calpurnia  came  to  the  farm.  His 
mother  was  on  her  knees  washing  up  the  stone 
floor  of  the  kitchen.  A  sweet  voice  sounded  in 
her  ears,  and  she  looked  up  to  see  a  goddess — as 
she  thought  in  the  first  blinding  moment — a 
goddess  dressed  in  silvery  white  with  a  gleam  of 


172  Roads  from  Rome 

gold  at  her  throat.  Neither  woman  ever  told  all 
that  passed  between  them  in  their  long  talk  in 
the  sunlit  courtyard,  where  they  sought  solitude, 
but  when  Marcus's  mother  kissed  her  visitor's 
hands  at  parting,  Calpurnia's  eyes  shone  with 
tears  and  her  own  were  bright  as  with  a  vision. 

When  she  went  back  into  the  kitchen,  she 
found  on  the  stone  table  a  great  hamper, 
from  which  a  bottle  of  wine  generously  pro- 
truded. Her  father-in-law  from  his  chair  in 
the  window  began  an  excited  and  incoherent 
story.  She  ran  to  him  and  knelt  by  his  side  and 
begged  him  to  understand  while  she  told  him 
of  a  miracle.  The  dull  old  eyes  looked  only 
troubled.  So  she  choked  back  her  tears  and 
stroked  his  hands  gently  and  said  over  and 
over,  until  his  face  brightened,  "You  are  never 
going  to  be  cold  or  hungry  again — never  cold 
or  hungry." 

Even  with  her  many  tasks  the  summer  day 
seemed  unending  to  her.  Finally,  as  the  shadows 
lengthened,  she  could  no  longer  endure  to  wait 
and  started  out  to  meet  Marcus.  Across  a  green 
meadow  she  saw  him  coming,  walking  soberly 


Fortune's  Ledger  173 

and  wearily  in  front  of  his  herded  flock.  As  he 
saw  her,  his  listlessness  fell  from  him  and  he  ran 
forward  anxiously.  But  when  he  reached  her 
and  saw  her  eyes,  his  heart  almost  stopped 
beating  in  glad  amazement.  And  she  held  out 
her  hands,  while  the  dog  jumped  up  on  them 
both  in  an  ecstasy,  and  said  to  him,  "My  son, 
Fors  Fortuna,  your  Lady  of  the  Spring,  has 
blessed  us.  You  are  to  go  to  school." 

Later  in  the  evening,  when  the  wonderful 
supper  from  the  hamper  had  been  eaten  and 
cleared  away,  and  the  grandfather  had  fallen 
peacefully  asleep,  and  the  sheep  and  goats  and 
hens  had  been  tended  for  the  night,  Marcus  and 
his  mother  sat  in  the  doorway  beside  the  red 
rosebush  and  dreamed  dreams  together  of  a  time 
when  house  and  courtyard,  renewed,  should 
once  more  exercise  a  happy  sovereignty  over 
fruitful  acres.  The  world  seemed  Marcus's 
because  he  was  to  go  to  school,  this  very  year, 
in  their  own  Como.  They  had  not  known  before 
that  Pliny  had  offered  to  share  with  the  citizens 
the  expense  of  a  school  of  their  own,  so  that  boys 
need  not  go  as  far  as  Milan.  Marcus  was  awed 


1/4  Roads  from  Rome 

into  speechlessness  when  his  mother  told  him 
that  the  great  man  was  personally  to  see  to  his 
registration  and  fees  and  clothes  and  books. 
The  evening  wore  on,  and  the  boy's  head, 
heavy  with  visions,  fell  sleepily  against  his 
mother's  breast.  As  she  held  him  to  her,  her 
thoughts  wandered  from  him  to  the  radiant 
lady  who  had  brought  such  light  into  their  dark- 
ness. Could  Fors  Fortuna  herself,  she  wondered, 
be  any  happier,  laden  with  beauty  and  riches 
and  power,  and  making  of  them  a  saving  gift 
for  mortals? 

At  the  villa  dinner  had  passed  off  successfully, 
Quadratilla  having  been  entertaining  oftener 
than  outrageous  and  the  others  having  been  in 
a  compliant  mood  because  she  was  to  leave  the 
next  day.  After  dinner,  in  the  cool  atrium, 
Calpurnia  had  sung  some  of  her  husband's 
verses,  which  she  had  herself  charmingly  adapted 
to  the  lyre.  Later  Quadratilla  challenged  the 
younger  people  to  the  dice,  while  Hispulla  re- 
tired to  the  library.  Calpurnia  slipped  into  the 
garden.  There  Pliny,  never  contented  when 
she  was  out  of  his  sight,  found  her  leaning  against 


Fortune's  Ledger  175 

a  marble  balustrade  among  the  ghostly  flower- 
beds, where  in  the  night  deep  pink  azaleas  and 
crimson  and  amber  roses  became  one  with  tall 
while  lilies.  Nightingales  were  singing  and  the 
darkness  was  sparkling  with  fireflies.  Her 
fragile  face  shone  out  upon  him  like  a  flower.  If 
about  Pliny  the  public  official  there  was  any- 
thing a  little  amusing,  a  little  pompous,  it  was 
not  to  be  found  in  Pliny  the  married  lover. 
Immemorial  tendernesses  were  in  his  voice  as  he 
spoke  to  his  wife:  "My  sweet,  what  are  you 
thinking  of,  withdrawn  so  far  from  me?"  Cal- 
purnia  smiled  bravely  into  his  face,  as  she  an- 
swered: "Of  the  mothers  who  have  little  sons  to 
send  to  school." 


A  ROAD  TO  ROME 

An  ardour  not  of  Eros'  lips. 

— WILLIAM  WATSON. 


HE  spring  had  come  promptly  this 
year  and  with  it  the  usual  invoice  of 
young  Romans  to  Athens.  Some  of 
them  were  planning  to  stay  only  a 
month  or  two  to  see  the  country  and  hear  the 
more  famous  professors  lecture.  Others  were 
settling  down  for  a  long  period  of  serious  study 
in  rhetoric  and  philosophy.  Scarcely  to  be 
classed  among  any  of  these  was  the  young  poet 
Julius  Paulus,*  who,  as  he  put  it  to  himself  with 

*A  poet  Julius  Paulus  is  mentioned  once  by  Aulus 
Gellius  in  the  Attic  Nights,  in  terms  which  seem  to 
suggest  both  his  worldly  prosperity  and  his  cultivated 
tastes.  But  the  suggestion  for  his  character  in  this 
imaginary  sketch  has  come,  in  reality,  from  generous 
and  ardent  young  students  of  to-day,  turning  reluctantly 
from  their  life  in  Athens  to  patient  achievement  in  the 
countries  whose  sons  they  are. 
176 


A  Road  to  Rome  177 

the  frank  grandiosity  of  youth,  was  in  search  of 
the  flame  of  life — studiosus  ardoris  mvendi.  He 
had  brought  a  letter  to  Aulus  Gellius,  and  Gel- 
lius,  dutifully  responsive  to  all  social  claims, 
invited  him  on  a  day  in  early  March  to  join  him 
and  a  few  friends  for  a  country  walk  and  an 
outdoor  lunch  in  one  of  their  favourite  meeting 
places. 

This  place,  an  unfrequented  precinct  of  Aphro- 
dite, about  two  hours  distant  from  the  market- 
place, lay  below  the  rocky  summit  of  Hymettus 
within  the  hollow  of  the  foot  hills.  The  walk 
was  an  easy  one,  but  the  forenoon  sun  was 
warm  and  the  young  pedestrians  upon  their 
arrival  paused  in  grateful  relief  by  a  spring 
under  a  large  plane  tree  which  still  bore  its 
leaves  of  wintry  gold.  The  clear  water,  a  boon 
in  arid  Attica,  completed  their  temperate  lunch 
of  bread  and  eggs,  dried  figs  and  native  wine. 
After  eating  they  climbed  farther  up  the  hillside 
and  stretched  themselves  out  in  the  soft  grass 
that  lurked  among  boulders  in  the  shade  of  a 
beech  tree.  Aulus,  with  the  air  of  performing  an 
habitual  action,  produced  a  book.  To-day  it 


178  Roads  from  Rome 

proved  to  be  a  choice  old  volume  of  Ovid,  which 
he  had  secured  at  a  bargain  on  the  quay  at 
Brindisi,  convinced  that  it  had  belonged,  fully 
one  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago,  to  the  poet 
himself.  It  had  gone  far,  he  said,  toward  con- 
soling him  for  the  loss  of  an  original  Second  Book 
of  the  Aeneid  snatched  up  by  a  friend  in  the 
Image  Market  at  Rome.  The  Ovid  was  for 
Paulus's  edification.  Aulus  unrolled  his  treasure 
and  read  aloud  "an  accurate  description  of  this 
very  spot:" 

Violet  crests  of  Hymettus  a-flower 

Neighbour  a  fountain  consecrate. 
Yielding  and  green  is  the  turf.    In  a  bower 

Trees  low-growing  meet  and  mate; 
Arbutus  shadeth  the  green  grass  kirtle, 

Sweet  the  scent  of  rosemary; 
Fragrant  the  bay  and  the  bloom  of  the  myrtle; 

Nay,  nor  fail  thee  here  to  see 
Tamarisks  delicate,  box-wood  masses, 

Lordly  pine  and  clover  low. 
Legions  of  leaves  and  the  top  of  the  grasses 

Stir  with  healing  zephyrs  slow. 

The  reader's  indifference  to  what  confronted 
his  eyes,  added  to  his  dull  regard  for  the  verbal 


A  Road  to  Rome  179 

accuracy  of  ancient  verses,  shrivelled  the  modern 
poet's  ardent  humour.  Was  this  an  example 
of  the  intellectual  enlightenment  awaiting  him, 
he  had  so  fondly  hoped,  in  Athens?  With  ap- 
prehension he  remembered  what  his  father's 
friend,  a  rich  dilettante,  one  of  the  best  liked  men 
in  Rome,  had  written  him  when  he  sent  him  the 
letter  of  introduction: 

"You  will  find  Gellius  the  best  fellow  in  the 
world  but  not  a  fagot  to  kindle  the  fires  of 
pleasure.  I  hear  that  he  has  called  his  book,  a 
particoloured  digest  of  information,  Attic  Nights, 
because  he  has  spent  his  nights  in  Athens 
writing  it — nights,  mark  you,  when  even  in  her 
own  city  Athena  closes  her  grey  eyes  within  her 
virgin  shrine  and  leaves  Pan  to  guard  from  his 
cave  below  the  roysterings  of  youth.  It  is  easy 
to  let  an  allusion  to  my  friend  Lucian  slip  off 
the  end  of  my  stylus  when  I  think  of  Athens.  He 
and  Gellius  are  scarcely  the  'like  pleasing  like' 
of  the  proverb!  Lucian,  in  fact,  disposed  of 
Gellius  once  by  calling  him  an  'Infant  Ignorance 
on  the  arm  of  Fashion.'  This  was  after  he  had 
watched  a  peasant  making  holiday  among  the 


I  So  Roads  from  Rome 

statues  and  temples  on  the  Acropolis,  carrying 
in  his  arms  a  three  months  old  child  who  dozed 
in  a  colonnade  of  the  Parthenon  and  sucked  his 
thumb  in  front  of  Athena  Promachus.  The 
blinking  baby,  he  said,  made  him  think  of  Aulus, 
futilely  carried  about  by  the  trend  of  the  age 
among  ideas  and  achievements  beyond  his 
understanding.  But  in  fairness  I  must  add  that 
when  this  was  repeated  to  Marcus  Aurelius  he 
retorted:  'Better  a  child  than  an  iconoclast  in 
the  presence  of  beauty.  I  should  call  Gellius 
an  honest  errand  boy  in  Athena's  temple.'  So 
there  you  have  two  ways  of  looking  at  your 
future  host.  If  Lucian  is  the  most  enlightened 
wit  of  the  day,  Aurelius  is  the  most  Roman  of  us 
all  and  likely  to  rule  over  us  when  Antoninus 
rejoins  the  gods. 

"On  Gellius's  return  next  year  he  is  to  be 
made  a  judge.  He  will  study  law  painstakingly 
and  apply  it  exactly.  And  Rome  will  never  for 
him  be  one  whit  juster.  However,  your  father 
will  be  delighted  to  have  you  make  such  a  friend 
— a  man  of  thirty  whose  idea  of  a  debauch  is  to 
make  a  syllogism,  who  is  a  favourite  student  of 


A  Road  to  Rome  181 

great  teachers  and  can  introduce  you  to  Herodes 
Atticus  and  to  all  the  best  life  of  Athens.  Nor, 
indeed,  do  I  marvel  at  Aurelius  for  trusting  him. 
As  a  scholar  or  a  jurist  he  will  always  be  neg- 
ligible, but  as  a  man  he  is  naively  sincere  and 
candid  and  with  all  the  strength  of  his  Roman 
will  he  is  determined  that  both  his  work  and  his 
pleasures  shall  be  such  as  befit  a  gentleman  of 
honour  and  refinement.  He  may  bore  you,  but, 
if  I  do  not  misread  you,  the  pleasures  that  are 
within  his  gift  will  have  a  finer  edge  for  you 
than  those  of  the  Colosseum  and  the  Circus 
Maximus." 

As  Gellius  droned  on  about  some  of  the 
niceties  of  Ovid's  language,  fragmentary  sen- 
tences of  this  letter  recurred  to  Paulus  and  he 
wondered  what  his  father's  friend  would  think 
of  him  could  he  accurately  read  his  desires  for 
pleasure.  Certainly  the  shows  of  the  Amphi- 
theatre seemed  remote  enough  here  under  the 
cool,  grey  branches,  tipped  with  early  green,  of 
the  Attic  beech  tree,  but  scarcely,  after  all,  more 
remote  than  they  often  seemed  in  Rome  itself 
to  a  youth  who  found  virile  recreation  by  the  sea 


1 82  Roads  from  Rome 

at  Ostia  or  in  following  the  Anio  over  the  hills 
of  Tibur.  No,  he  had  not  flung  away  from  Rome 
to  escape  in  the  back  waters  of  a  smaller  town 
the  noisy  vulgarities  of  the  metropolis.  Nor  was 
he  one  of  those  who  confused  the  contests  of  the 
Circus  with  the  creative  struggles  of  the  Forum. 
His  abstinence  from  political  life  was  due  to 
temperament  rather  than  conviction,  nature 
having  shaped  him  for  active  citizenship  in  a 
world  dissociated  from  public  insignia.  It  was 
in  this  world  that  he  found  himself  at  twenty- 
five  ill  at  ease.  Without  genius,  his  slender  vein 
of  talent  was  yet  of  pure  gold.  There  was  no 
danger  of  his  overrating  his  own  poetry.  He  saw 
it  as  it  was,  of  the  day  and  hour,  wearing  no 
immortal  grace  of  thought  or  language.  But  in 
it  he  was  at  his  best,  more  honest  and  more 
whole-hearted  than  he  could  be  in  any  public 
service.  This  seemed  to  him,  quite  simply,  to 
constitute  a  reason  for  being  such  a  poet  as  he 
was. 

He  belonged  to  an  ancient  family,  which  had 
furnished  a  consul  in  the  first  Punic  War,  had 
left  distinguished  dead  on  the  field  of  Cannae 


A  Road  to  Rome  183 

and  had  borne  on  its  roll  the  conqueror  of 
Macedonia.  ^Emilius  Paulus  Macedonicus  had 
rendered  Rome  the  further  and  signal  service  of 
a  public  life  as  spotless  as  it  was  brilliant,  and 
something  of  this  statesman's  scrupulous  integ- 
rity had  passed  to  the  youngest  son  of  the  house, 
leading  him  to  discriminate  in  his  world  also 
between  shadows  and  realities.  To  Paulus  the 
happiest  age  in  the  world's  history  was  the  age 
of  Pericles,  when  the  wedlock  of  life  and  learning 
issued  in  universal  power.  In  Rome  he  would 
have  been  glad  to  have  lived  in  the  last  years  of 
the  Republic,  or  under  Augustus,  when  Lucre- 
tius and  Catullus,  Virgil  and  Horace,  by  sub- 
mitting themselves  in  pupilage  to  the  Greeks, 
became  masters  of  new  thoughts  and  new  emo- 
tions among  the  masters  of  the  world.  How 
different  was  their  discipleship  from  the  imita- 
tive methods  of  modern  literati!  While  it  was 
the  fashion  to  boast  of  refinement  and  learning, 
while  libraries  jostled  each  other  and  rhetoricians 
and  philosophers  swarmed  in  the  city,  Paulus 
was  chiefly  conscious  that  in  the  place  of  creative 
imagination  a  soulless  erudition  walked  abroad. 


184  Roads  from  Rome 

In  the  vestibule  of  the  Palatine  temple,  waiting 
for  the  morning  appearance  of  the  Emperor, 
rhetoricians  discussed  the  meaning  of  an  adverb. 
In  the  baths  they  tested  each  other's  knowledge 
of  Sallust.  Grammarians  gathered  in  second- 
hand bookshops  around  rare  copies  of  Varro's 
satires  and  Fabius's  chronicles  and  hunted  for 
copyist's  errors.  If  one  were  tired  of  the  streets 
and  went  to  walk  in  Agrippa's  park,  he  ran  into 
men  quarrelling  over  a  vocative.  Even  on  a 
holiday  at  Ostia  he  could  not  escape  discussions 
between  Stoics  and  Peripatetics.  With  all  this 
activity,  philosophy  and  literature  grew  only 
more  anaemic. 

Paulus,  too  limited  to  be  himself  a  formative 
influence,  was  also  too  truth-loving  to  be  satisfied 
in  Rome  with  the  only  life  he  was  fitted  to  lead. 
Indifferent  to  the  persuasions  of  Aphrodite,  he 
yet  harboured  in  his  temperament  a  certain 
warmth  which  made  him  eager  to  live  with  pas- 
sion and  abandon,  to  scorch  his  hands  in  the 
fires  of  the  world  rather  than  drearily  to  warm 
them  at  burnt  out  ashes.  Hopeless  in  Rome,  he 
determined  to  seek  his  fortune  elsewhere.  An 


A  Road  to  Rome  185 

intellectual  life  real  enough  to  claim  his  spend- 
thrift allegiance,  this,  concretely,  was  the  prize 
for  which  he  had  set  sail  from  Brindisi  two 
months  before. 

The  act  gave  him  an  outward  resemblance  to 
the  horde  of  young  bloods  who  were  always 
swinging  out  on  the  high  seas  in  search  of  sport 
and  adventure.  The  most  restless  made  for 
Britain  and  the  shores  of  the  Euxine  or  the 
Baltic,  or  for  the  interior  of  Syria  and  Persia. 
The  larger  number  followed  the  beaten  and  lux- 
urious paths  to  Egypt,  where  they  plunged  into 
the  gaieties  of  Alexandria  and,  cursorily  enough, 
saw  the  sights  of  Memphis  and  Thebes.  Paulus 
also  went  to  Egypt.  But  in  spite  of  his  introduc- 
tions and  his  opportunities  to  experiment  with 
modern  life  under  the  absolving  witchery  of 
Oriental  conditions,  he  gave  himself  over  to  the 
subtler  influences  of  the  past.  Pilgrim  rather 
than  tourist,  he  visited  eagerly  the  pyramids  and 
the  Sphinx,  the  temples  of  Karnak  and  Thebes, 
the  tombs  of  the  Theban  kings,  the  colossi  of 
the  desert.  In  the  frightful  course  of  the  cen- 
turies, as  they  unrolled  before  him,  he  seized 


1 86  Roads  from  Rome 

upon  the  guidance  of  Herodotus,  to  whom  the 
monuments  of  Egypt  had  seemed  as  incalculably 
old  as  they  did  to  him.  The  choice,  however,  had 
proved  unfortunate  for  his  sympathetic  reading 
of  Egyptian  history.  Dwelling  on  the  radiant 
progress  towards  truth  and  beauty  of  a  free  race, 
bondsmen  only  to  law  and  reason,  younger 
brothers  of  bright  gods,  he  became  querulously 
critical  of  a  race  whose  Pharaohs  strangled  life 
in  the  thought  of  death  and  eternity,  prostrated 
themselves  before  gods  in  monstrous  shapes, 
and  produced  art  at  the  expense  of  human 
well-being. 

The  landscape  of  Egypt  also  seemed  to  Paulus 
as  sinister  as  it  was  exquisite.  Its  beauty, 
whether  of  silver  Nile  or  lilac  mountains  or 
tawny  desert,  enervated  by  its  appeal  to  the 
love  of  easy  delight,  and  bred  mad,  vagrant 
thoughts,  precursors  of  moral  disaster.  He 
had  slept  in  the  desert  one  night.  The  enamelled 
turquoise  of  the  daylight  sky,  the  clear,  red  gold 
of  the  sunset,  the  ghostly  amber  of  the  after- 
glow gave  way  to  moonlight.  As  he  lay  and 
watched  the  silver  bloom  spread  over  the  sand 


A  Road  to  Rome  187 

dunes,  he  felt  suddenly  a  great  terror.  The  golden 
apples  of  his  western  labour,  the  hard-won  fruits 
of  his  stern  young  virtue,  were  slipping  out  of 
his  grasp.  The  white  desert  lay  upon  his  spirit 
like  mist  upon  the  sea,  obliterating  the  promised 
course.  Desires,  unknown  before,  crept  in  upon 
him  over  the  waves  of  the  sand.  All  that  he  had 
rejected  claimed  him.  All  that  he  had  thought 
holy  mocked  him.  The  next  day  he  hurried  to 
Alexandria  and,  recoiling  from  the  library  he  had 
planned  to  visit,  took  the  first  ship  to  Greece. 

He  had  landed  a  week  ago.  To-day's  excur- 
sion, offering  a  pleasant  comradeship  with  those 
of  his  own  race  in  a  strange  land,  came  almost 
opportunely,  he  fancied,  to  break  an  exalted 
mood.  He  had  found  himself  roused  to  the 
uttermost  by  his  first  impressions  of  Athens. 
Put  to  flight  by  the  seduction  of  river  and  desert, 
it  was  the  influence  of  the  landscape  rather  than 
of  art  and  history  to  which  he  was  here  first 
made  sensitive.  Sea,  mountains  and  plain  were 
informed  with  a  beauty  which  purged  his 
memory  of  the  evil  loveliness  of  Egypt  and 
restored  gravity  and  dignity  to  his  conception 


1 88  Roads  from  Rome 

of  human  life.  He  was  struck  by  what  Plato 
would  have  called  the  Doric  strain  in  the  har- 
monies of  outline  and  colour.  Idyllic  scenes  he 
had  already  run  across  in  his  walks  out  from 
the  city,  scenes  formed  and  reformed  by  the 
lovely  occupations  of  farm  and  vineyard  and 
pasture.  But  the  lyric  note  so  familiar  to  him 
in  Italy  seemed  always  overborne  by  a  deeper. 
Whether  it  was  because  of  the  noble  modelling 
of  the  fleshless  mountains  or  because  of  an  inner 
restraint  in  the  minor  elements  of  the  landscape, 
the  mood  generated  by  the  beauty  of  the  Attic 
plain  was  always  a  grave  one,  delight  swelling 
into  reverence. 

Now  also,  as  his  thoughts  ceased  whirling  and 
he  became  conscious  again  of  what  lay  around 
him,  his  irritation  died.  All  that  was  trifling 
must  be  discarded  when  his  eye  could  travel 
beyond  wild  hyacinth  and  myrtle,  past  pines 
and  olive  groves  and  cypresses,  past  the  rosy 
soil  of  upturned  fields,  to  the  long,  firm  lines  of 
Parnes's  purple  ridge  and  to  the  snowy  sum- 
mit, a  midday  beacon,  high-uplifted,  of  distant 
Helicon. 


A  Road  to  Rome  189 

To  his  relief,  Paulus  found  that  Gellius's 
monologue  had  given  way  to  general  conversa- 
tion. As  he  listened  his  heart  grew  hot  within 
him.  These  young  men,  of  whom  only  Gellius 
and  Servilianus  had  passed  out  of  their  twenties, 
had  lived  in  Athens  for  a  year  or  longer,  and  now, 
conscious  of  their  approaching  departure,  they 
had  fallen  to  talking  of  the  past  months.  A 
strange  power  Athens  seemed  to  have  of  exacting 
from  aliens  the  intimate  loyalty  of  sons.  Here, 
Paulus  felt,  was  no  miserly  counting  up  of  gains, 
but  an  inner  concern  with  art  and  history.  Not 
as  gluttonous  travellers,  but  as  those  facing  a 
long  exile,  they  talked  of  a  city  richer  than 
Rome  or  Alexandria  or  Antioch,  richer  than  all 
the  cities  of  the  Empire  taken  together,  in  mas- 
terpieces of  architect  and  sculptor  and  painter; 
of  a  country-side  alive  with  memories  of  poets 
and  thinkers  and  soldiers.  Taking  with  a 
catholic  enthusiasm  the  hot  winds  and  driving 
white  dust  of  summer,  the  deforming  rains  of 
winter,  and  the  bright  splendour  of  sky  and  earth 
at  the  advent  of  spring,  they  had  tramped  hither 
and  yon,  light-hearted  in  the  vigour  of  youth, 


190  Roads  from  Rome 

reverent  in  the  impulse  of  pilgrimage.  Mountain 
fastnesses  where  the  clarion  winds  still  trump- 
eted the  victory  of  freedom  and  of  Thrasybulus; 
upland  caves  where  Plato  had  been  taken  as  a 
child  to  worship  Pan;  long,  white  roads  leading 
to  the  village  homes  of  Euripides  and  Demos- 
thenes; the  wind  in  the  pine  trees  on  Pentelicon, 
reminding  them  of  the  wind  in  the  groves  of 
Tusculum;  the  autumn  leaves  on  the  plane 
trees  by  the  Ilissus;  the  silver  moon  seen  from 
the  water's  edge  at  Phaleron,  swinging  into  the 
eastern  void  above  the  amethyst-dyed  rocks  of 
Hymettus;  a  sail  on  a  summer  star-lit  night  from 
y£gina  to  Piraeus — all  these  things  crept  one  by 
one  into  their  conversation.  Here,  Paulus 
recognised,  was  a  group  of  young  men  on  fire 
with  a  real  emotion,  cleansed  in  the  presence  of 
beauty  and  of  great  memories,  witnesses  afresh 
to  a  procreative  Hellas.  When  the  party  broke 
up  he  thanked  his  host  for  the  happiest  day  he 
had  spent  in  many  months. 

On  the  way  home,  after  rounding  the  last 
foot  hill,  they  saw  the  Acropolis  across  the  plain. 
The  sun  fell  on  the  red  in  the  natural  rock  and 


A  Road  to  Rome  191 

intensified  the  white  of  the  marbles.  Against 
the  sombre  mountains  the  isolated  citadel 
glowed  inly,  like  a  milk-white  opal  shot  with 
rose.  Paulus  caught  his  breath.  Was  it  here, 
his  flame  of  life? 

II 

In  the  following  weeks  Paulus  remembered 
some  things  in  the  conversation  of  this  day, 
which  at  the  time  had  made  but  slight  impression 
on  him.  The  stories  of  professors  and  teachers 
had  meant  little  until  he  knew  at  first  hand  the 
lentil  suppers  and  brilliant  talking  at  the  house 
of  Taurus,  the  ethical  discussions  with  Peregrinus 
in  his  hovel  on  the  outskirts  of  the  city,  and, 
most  of  all,  the  generous  and  ennobling  hospi- 
tality, in  his  city  house  and  villas,  of  the  mil- 
lionaire rhetorician,  Herodes  Atticus.  About 
Peregrinus  Paulus  could  never  make  up  his 
mind.  Was  he  the  helpful  teacher  Gellius 
thought  him,  or  the  blatant  charlatan  of  Lucian's 
frequent  attacks?  At  any  rate,  the  stories  that 
were  abroad  about  his  wild  youth,  his  connection 
with  the  strange  sect  known  as  Christians,  his 


192  Roads  from  Rome 

excommunication  by  them  for  profaning  one  of 
their  rites,  his  expulsion  from  Rome  by  the 
Prefect  of  the  City  for  his  anarchistic  harangues 
made  a  picturesque  background  for  his  cynic 
garb  and  ascetic  preaching.  To  Taurus  and 
Atticus,  on  the  other  hand,  Paulus  could  give 
himself  with  unreserved  loyalty.  His  hardy  will 
responded  to  the  severe  standards  of  thought 
and  conduct  set  by  the  Platonic  philosopher, 
while  the  wilder  heart  within  him  seemed  to  seek 
and  understand  the  rhetorician's  emotional 
nature  and  extravagant  affections. 

Indeed,  as  the  spring  passed  into  summer,  all 
the  elements  in  Paulus's  life  seemed  to  confirm 
the  glory  of  that  day  on  the  slopes  of  Hymettus 
when  he  had  first  felt  sure  of  the  significance 
Greece  held  for  him.  The  cumulative  effect  of 
his  association  with  older  men,  his  young  friend- 
ships, his  work  toward  his  chosen  goal,  his  grave 
but  piercing  pleasures,  was  to  make  him  at 
home  in  Athens  as  he  had  never  been  at  home 
in  Rome.  He  rested  in  the  charm  of  the  smaller, 
simpler  city,  where  among  all  classes  and  all 
ways  of  life  mental  refinement  took  precedence 


A  Road  to  Rome  193 

i 

of  crass  display.  Here,  he  felt,  he  could  live  and 
work,  unknown  to  fame  indeed,  but  with  all  that 
was  best  in  him  dedicated  in  freedom  and  in- 
tegrity to  the  life  of  the  spirit.  The  memory  of 
Egypt,  where  all  effort  lost  itself  in  the  mockery 
of  the  desert,  and  the  thought  of  Rome,  where 
in  these  later  years  all  fruitful  effort  was  military, 
political,  commercial,  became  almost  equally 
abhorrent  to  him.  Greece,  set  within  her  stain- 
less seas,  was  like  a  holy  temple  set  apart,  a  place 
of  refuge  from  shams  and  error  and  confusion. 

This  worshipful  attitude  towards  Athens  was 
crystallized  in  the  young  poet  at  the  time  of  the 
Panathenaic  festival,  in  July.  The  festival  was 
still  a  brilliant  one,  a  brief  radiance  falling  upon 
city  and  citizens.  Unlike  a  holiday  season  at 
Rome,  here  were  no  shows  of  gladiators  or  beasts, 
no  procession  of  captors  and  captives,  no  array 
of  Arabian  gold  or  Chinese  silk  or  Indian  em- 
broideries. The  Athenians,  seeking  novelty, 
found  it  in  their  own  renewed  appreciation  of 
the  physical  skill  of  athletes,  of  music  and 
drama,  of  observances  still  hallowed  by  religion 
and  patriotism.  On  the  Acropolis  Paulus 


194  Roads  from  Rome 

watched  the  arrival  of  the  procession  bringing 
this  year's  peplos  to  Athena.  After  centuries 
of  shame  in  the  political  life  of  her  city  the 
gold-ivory  statue  of  the  Guardian  Goddess  shone 
undefiled  in  a  temple  whose  beauty  was  a  denial 
of  time.  The  pageant  also,  once  more  paying 
tribute  to  Wisdom,  was  noble  and  beautiful  as 
in  the  days  of  Phidias.  The  gifts  of  Greece  were 
beyond  the  reach  of  conqueror  or  destroyer. 
Paulus  entered  the  inner  shrine  and  looked  up  at 
the  winged  Victory  borne  upon  the  hand  of  the 
goddess.  To  dwell  in  Athens  seemed  a  sacred 
purpose.  Involuntarily,  in  self-dedication,  he 
found  himself  using  the  familiar  prayer  of  the 
theatre: 

O  majestical  Victory,  shelter  my  life 
Neath  thy  covert  of  wings, 
Aye,  cease  not  to  grant  me  thy  crowning. 

Ill 

The  answer  to  this  prayer,  the  grant  of  victory, 
came,  as  it  happened,  in  strange  guise.  The 
sensitive  Roman  youth,  still  in  the  potter's 


A  Road  to  Rome  195 

hands,  had  reckoned  without  the  final  Greek 
experience  which  lay  ahead  of  him,  the  issue  of 
one  night  in  the  early  autumn.  During  the 
season  of  the  full  moon  in  September  all  lectures 
were  suspended  and  most  of  the  Roman  students 
joined  the  crowd  of  travellers  to  Elis  to  see  the 
Olympic  games.  Paulus  had  had  a  touch  of 
malaria  and  his  physician  had  urged  him  not  to 
expose  himself  to  the  dangers  of  outdoor  camp- 
ing in  a  low  country.  He  consented  lightly, 
thinking  to  himself  that  since  he  was  to  live  in 
Greece  he  could  afford  to  postpone  for  a  few 
years  the  arduous  pleasures  of  the  great  festival. 
Herodes  Atticus  had  gone  this  year,  and  upon 
his  return  brought  with  him  for  a  visit  a  group  of 
very  distinguished  men,  including  Lucian  and 
Apuleius  and  the  Alexandrian  astronomer, 
Ptolemy.  Paulus  was  astonished  and  proud 
to  receive,  with  Gellius,  an  invitation  to  a  dinner 
in  their  honour  given  at  Cephisia. 

The  weather  was  still  extremely  hot  and  the 
dinner  hour  was  set  late.  Even  when  Paulus 
and  Gellius  left  the  city  the  air  was  heavy  and 
exhausting  and  never  had  the  villa  seemed  to 


196  Roads  from  Rome 

them  more  beautiful.  The  great  groves  of 
cypresses  and  pines,  of  poplars  and  plane  trees, 
were  dark  with  the  shadow  of  the  moonless 
night.  In  the  broad  pools  the  stars  were  re- 
flected. The  birds  were  hushed,  but  the  sound 
of  cool,  running  water  rang  sweet  in  urban  ears. 
Within  the  dining-room  an  unhampered  taste 
had  done  all  that  was  possible  to  obliterate  the 
memory  of  the  scorching  day.  A  certain  re- 
straint in  all  the  appointments  perfected  the 
sense  of  well-being.  As  Paulus  yielded  to  it  and 
looked  at  his  fellow  guests,  he  drew  a  long  breath 
of  contentment.  How  exquisite,  he  thought, 
was  Greek  life,  how  vivid  the  inspiration  of  this 
hour! 

Conversation  naturally  turned  at  first  to 
episodes  of  the  Games  and  the  successes  of 
the  victors;  then  by  easy  stages  drifted  to  the 
discussion  of  the  nature  of  success  of  any 
kind. 

Alpheus  of  Mytilene,  hailing,  by  how  long  an 
interval,  from  the  city  and  the  craft  of  the 
Lesbian  Muse,  turned  to  the  host.  "Atticus," 
he  said,  "here  is  an  easy  question  for  you.  Tell 


A  Road  to  Rome  197 

us  how  to  succeed."  All  the  guests  paused 
expectantly,  knowing  that  a  chance  question 
would  sometimes  lead  Atticus  into  one  of  the 
vivid  displays  of  extemporaneous  oratory  for 
which  he  was  famous.  Nor  were  they  dis- 
appointed now.  He  looked  at  the  company 
before  him,  men,  for  the  most  part,  younger  than 
himself.  A  strange  glow,  as  if  from  smouldering 
fires  freshly  stirred,  brightened  in  his  dark  eyes, 
and  he  began  to  speak,  impetuously.  His  voice, 
low  in  its  first  haste,  rose  shrill  with  the  tide  of 
emotion,  as  he  passed  headlong  over  the  barriers 
of  logic  and  of  form. 

"You  ask  me  about  success  because  you  think 
I  have  succeeded.  Do  you  know  what  the  char- 
acteristic moment  of  my  life  was?  It  was  when, 
almost  forty  years  ago,  I  failed  in  my  first  speech 
before  divine  Hadrian  and  sickened  with  chagrin. 
Most  of  you  are  young  and  will  not  wonder,  as  I 
might  now  wonder  at  myself,  that  I  stood  by  the 
Danube  that  night  and  nearly  threw  myself  into 
the  oblivious  water.  Concrete  failure  is  as 
palpable  a  thing  as  concrete  success.  The  one 
is  like  a  golden  cup  which  you  turn  in  your 


198  Roads  from  Rome 

hands  and  lift  in  the  sunlight  before  you  test  at 
your  lips  the  wine  it  holds.  The  other  is  worm- 
wood forced  into  your  mouth.  Like  wormwood, 
it  may  be  cleansing.  My  '  success '  in  my  chosen 
profession,  the  fact  that  I  have  made  great 
speeches,  held  high  positions,  acquired  fame,  is 
due  to  the  inner  sickness  that  night  by  the 
river.  You  will  find  that  the  name  of  many  a 
man  of  my  age  is  in  men's  mouths  because  at  the 
outset  Defeat  became  his  trophy,  the  Gorgon's 
head,  despoiled  by  his  first  sword  of  hiss  and 
venom.  So  there,  my  friends,  you  have  the  rule 
you  ask  for — fail  once  so  ignominiously  that  you 
wish  to  die,  and  you  may  wrest  from  fate  a  brief 
name  and  the  cloak  of  success. 

"But  beneath  the  cloak  what  is  there?  What, 
I  mean,  has  there  been  for  me?  If  it  is  true  that 
success  is  to  be  measured  by  the  fulfilment  of 
desires,  then  through  all  these  years  I  have  but 
stood  by  the  bank  of  the  Danube.  You  know 
that  I  am  an  exemplar,  fit  for  a  schoolboy's 
rhetorical  exercise,  of  the  old  lesson  of  life,  that 
wealth  and  power  do  not  bring  fruition  in  the 
intimate  affections  and  hopes.  My  son,  my 


A  Road  to  Rome  199 

daughter,  have  died.*  The  only  son  left  to  me  is 
a  daily  torture  to  my  pride.  The  disciples  I  took 
into  their  places  have  died.  The  statues  of  them 
which  I  set  up  at  Marathon  no  longer  comfort 
me.  Like  Menelaus,  I  have  learned  to  hate  the 
empty  hollows  of  their  eyes  where  'Love  lies 
dead.' 

"All  these  things  you  have  been  taught  by 
history  to  discount.  Barrenness  in  the  personal 
life  is  the  price  many  a  man  has  paid  for  public 
honours.  Fortune  must  preserve  an  equilibrium 
among  us.  No  man  is  blessed  in  everything. 
That  you  know  from  the  Horace  of  your  own 
school  days.  But,  seldom  hearing  men  speak  the 
truth,  you  may  not  know  that  to  some  of  us,  at 
least,  there  is  no  return  for  the  price  we  pay. 
When  we  give  up  juggling  with  facts  for  the  sake 
of  performing  the  work  of  the  world,  we  know 
that,  instead  of  achievement, 

*  It  was  after  the  date  assumed  for  this  dinner  that 
Regilla,  the  Roman  wife  of  Herodcs  Atticus,  died  under 
peculiarly  tragic  circumstances.  In  commemoration  of 
her  he  built  his  famous  Odeum  on  the  south  slope  of  the 
Acropolis. 


2OO  Roads  from  Rome 

Mournful  phantoms  of  dreams  are  there, 
Fancies  as  vain  as  the  joys  they  bear, 
Vain — for  think  we  that  good  has  neared, 
It  slips  through  the  hand  or  e'er  't  has  appeared, 
And  the  vision  has  vanished  on  wings  that  keep 
Company  on  the  paths  of  sleep. 


"I  can  make  you  see  this  in  my  own  life  by  an 
illustration  which  may  surprise  you.  Some  of 
you  have  envied  me  my  power  to  enrich  and 
beautify  Greece.  You  imagine  that  I  myself 
find  some  satisfaction  in  the  white  marble  over 
the  Stadion  in  Athens,  in  the  water  works  in 
Olympia,  where  we  no  longer  drink  in  fevers, 
in  the  embellishments  at  Delphi,  in  the  theatre 
at  Corinth.  You  think  it  a  great  thing  that  I 
can,  by  turning  to  my  money,  create  memorials 
to  myself  in  the  greater  comfort  of  cities  of 
Asia  Minor  and  of  Italy.  But  I  tell  you  that  all 
these  things  are  nothing  to  me  because  the  only 
thing  I  want  to  do  for  my  country  is  to  connect 
the  two  seas  at  Corinth  by  a  canal  cut  through 
the  solid  earth.  What  is  all  the  rest?  A  playing 
with  perishable  materials,  an  erecting  of  'mem- 
orials' which  you  and  I  find  beautiful  and  service- 


A  Road  to  Rome  201 

able,  which  in  another  hundred  years  may  serve 
but  to  mark  the  transitoriness  of  our  civilisation, 
and  of  which  in  five  hundred  years  only  traces 
will  remain  to  be  pointed  out  as  Mycenae  was 
pointed  out  to  you,  Alpheus,  by  a  goatherd, 
driving  his  flocks  where  once  was  a  city  of  gold. 
My  'success'  is  of  the  moment.  My  desire 
is  for  the  conquest  of  nature  herself,  to  bind  her 
for  all  time  to  the  service  of  man.  The  idea 
of  a  canal  teased  Julius  Caesar,  and  Nero,  with 
purple  pomp,  began  to  cut  the  rock;  and  yet  the 
land  still  stands  between  the  eastern  and  the 
western  seas,  limiting  commerce,  exhausting 
energies.  When  Panathenaic  games  are  no 
longer  held  in  the  Stadion,  when  Apollo  speaks 
clearest  from  other  oracles  than  Delphi,  Greeks 
will  be  building  ships;  Asia  Minor,  Egypt  and 
India  will  be  sending  their  treasures  to  Italy; 
the  passage  from  east  to  west  will  be  utilised. 
I  should  have  done  a  thing  for  all  time,  not  for 
ourselves." 

The  speaker  paused  as  his  hot  eyes  swept  over 
his  guests.  Then  he  rushed  on  again : 

"But  I  can  see  from  your  faces  that  this 


2O2  Roads  from  Rome 

illustration  does  not  convince  you.  To  you  the 
canal  is  even  less  important  than  a  new  facade 
for  the  well-house  of  Corinthian  Peirene.  Let 
me  try  again.  I  have  heard  people  say  what  a 
satisfaction  it  must  be  to  me  to  play  a  conspic- 
uous part  in  the  life  of  our  own  generation.  But 
what  is  the  life  of  our  generation — the  life,  I 
mean,  in  which  I  have  any  individual  share? 
My  contribution  is  in  art  and  literature,  not  in 
politics  or  war.  And  in  art  and  literature  what 
are  we  doing,  save  recalling  in  vague  echoes  the 
greater  voices  of  a  dead  past?  Even  Lucian  here, 
who  is  the  only  original  of  us  all  in  letters,  even 
Ptolemy,  who  is  a  master  in  science,  will  agree 
with  me.  Our  greatness  is  of  the  past. 

"Look  at  the  statues  in  the  theatre!  ^Eschy- 
lus,  Sophocles  and  Euripides  surrounded  by 
what  a  horde  of  little  moderns!  Menander 
standing  cheek  by  jowl  with  a  poetaster!  The 
Emperors  have  dallied  with  us,  wanting  the 
gifts  we  bear  to  the  Empire.  The  Roman 
Republic  saw  to  it  that  we  should  bring  no  new 
gifts.  The  trees  in  Aristotle's  Lyceum  were  cut 
down  by  Sulla  to  make  his  engines  of  war. 


A  Road  to  Rome  203 

When  he  turned  these  engines  on  the  Acropolis, 
Athena's  golden  lamp  went  out. 

"I  was  consul  once  at  Rome,  but  few  will 
remember  it  of  me,  for  it  was  not  the  real  I  that 
did  that  work.  But  I  was  doing,  I  sometimes 
think,  a  more  real  thing  than  when  I  try  to  clothe 
Athens  again  with  the  glory  of  Pericles's  age 
or  seek  in  long  lost  quarries  for  my  prose  style. 
I  envied  divine  Hadrian  his  faith  in  a  restoration. 
His  pride  in  Rome  seemed  really  equalled  by  his 
passionate  sentiment  for  Athens  and  his  deter- 
mination to  make  her  once  more  the  nurse  of  the 
arts.  Commerce  and  wealth  have  swept  by  us 
to  Egypt.  Ships  put  in  at  Piraeus  merely  for 
repairs,  and  no  longer,  as  in  the  great  past,  pay 
a  part  of  their  cargoes  to  Athens,  a  fee  of  har- 
bourage. Learning,  too,  has  swept  eastward. 
Librarians  and  learned  men  dwell  at  Alex- 
andria. Hadrian  asked  me  to  help  him  re- 
awaken in  Athens  Apollo  and  his  Muses.  The 
restorer's  buildings  are  round  about  you,  his  li- 
brary and  temples,  in  their  new  splendour  typical 
of  his  hope.  But  wherein,  after  all,  lies  the 
greatness  of  the  greatest  of  them?  The  Temple 


204  Roads  from  Rome 

of  Zeus  imposes  chiefly,  I  think,  by  its  display 
of  the  world-wide  power  of  Hadrian.  You  see 
the  statues  of  himself  in  and  about  it,  raised 
by  Rome  and  Carthage,  by  Corinth  and  Byzan- 
tium, by  Miletus  and  Laodicea,  by  every  city  of 
the  Empire,  paying  homage  to  an  emperor  who 
by  some  divine  grace  happened  to  prefer  to  be 
honoured  by  marble  in  Athens  rather  than  to 
have  gold  sent  to  him  in  Rome.  How  different 
is  the  Parthenon,  still,  after  six  hundred  years, 
the  embodiment  of  a  common  impulse  of  a  free 
people!  Try  as  Hadrian  would,  he  could  not 
restore  the  art  of  the  past." 

Atticus  looked  at  the  Romans  among  the 
company  and  his  voice  became  golden  and  per- 
suasive as  he  continued: 

"I  have  come  to  feel,  my  friends,  that  the 
restoration  of  an  art  that  is  not  the  outcome  of  a 
genuine  national  life  is  a  futile  thing.  Rome 
cannot  restore  the  glory  of  old  Athens.  She  can 
only  learn  from  Greece  how  to  create  a  glory  of 
her  own.  She  must  so  govern  her  life,  so  train 
her  sons,  that  out  of  their  own  impulses  a  new 
poetry,  a  new  art  will  grow.  Divine  influences 


A  Road  to  Rome  205 

from  the  past,  yes,  they  exist.  In  your  own  most 
creative  times  Cicero  and  Lucretius,  Virgil  and 
Horace,  did  more  than  restore.  Seeking  aliment 
from  Greece,  they  nurtured  their  own  genius. 
But  you,  what  are  you  and  your  friends  doing? 
Why  are  you  over  here?  Tell  me  that.  Are  you 
here  to  learn  to  be  better  Romans,  carrying  on 
your  own  national  life,  creating  at  last  out  of 
the  forces  of  your  own  time  an  architecture  and 
sculpture,  a  painting  and  poetry  commensurate 
with  your  powers?  Sometimes  I  fear  you  make 
a  cult  of  Athens,  lose  yourselves  in  remembering 
her  as  she  once  was.  You  seem  to  spend  your 
lives,  as  I  have  sometimes  spent  wakeful  nights 
at  Marathon,  my  birthplace,  listening  for  the  feet 
of  heroes  and  the  neighing  of  horses  on  the  field 
where  a  great  battle  was  once  fought.  That  may 
do  for  the  night  seasons,  but  with  the  sun  are 
there  not  new  conquests,  and  new  shields? 

"You  scorn  your  own  Romans  who  come  over 
here  and  put  up  their  names  on  old  statues  of 
Themistocles  and  Miltiades.  You  admire  Cicero 
who,  although  he  loved  Athens  and  wished  that 
he  might  leave  here  some  gift  from  himself, 


206  Roads  from  Rome 

scorned  to  pervert  an  ancient  statue.  And  yet, 
I  tell  you,  Cicero  was  a  Roman  first,  a  lover  of 
Greek  culture  second.  All  that  he  learned  here  he 
dedicated  to  the  Republic.  He  studied  Isocrates 
and  Demosthenes  in  order  that  by  his  voice  he 
might  free  Rome  from  traitors  and  persuade 
Justice  to  'walk  down  her  broad  highways  as 
Warder.'  He  read  Plato  that  philosophy  might 
soften  the  harsher  temper  of  his  own  people. 
He  partook  of  our  refinement  that  the  vigour 
of  Rome  might  be  used  in  the  service  of  hu- 
manity. 

"Take  warning  by  me.  Do  not,  indeed,  for- 
get our  past.  Stay  here  as  long  as  you  will. 
Touch  lingeringly  the  hem  of  Athena's  peplos. 
But  when  your  minds  are  strengthened,  when 
your  powers  are  matured,  go  back  to  your  own 
people  and  make  them  also,  because  you  have 
dwelt  for  a  time  in  the  home  of  Plato,  look  'to 
the  pattern  that  is  laid  up  in  heaven  for  him  who 
wills  to  see,  and,  seeing,  so  to  plant  his  dwelling.' 
Work  for  Rome.  Let  the  memory  of  Athens 
be  no  cup  of  eastern  magic.  Listen,  rather,  for 
her  voice  as  worshippers  at  the  salt  well  on  the 


A  Road  to  Rome  207 

Acropolis  listen,  when  the  south  wind  blows,  for 
the  sound  of  the  waves  of  the  purging  sea." 

The  rich,  emotional  voice  ceased  suddenly  like 
the  flood  tide  of  Northern  seas.  Paulus  was  not 
.prepared  for  the  swift  transformation  of  ardent 
speaker  into  observant  host  as  Atticus  turned 
with  a  whispered  order  to  the  slave  who  stood 
behind  him.  He  was  shocked,  too,  failing  to 
perceive  its  note  of  defiant  bitterness,  by  a  laugh 
from  Lucian  and  his  careless,  "My  felicitations, 
Atticus,  on  your  welding  of  dirge  and  exhortation 
into  one  epideictic  oration!  Aulus,"  he  added, 
looking  across  the  table,  "don't  forget  to  make  a 
note  of  the  prepositions  the  master  used  in  bury- 
ing Greece." 

The  sneer  fortunately  was  almost  on  the 
instant  covered  up  by  Ptolemy,  who,  as  if 
awakened  from  a  revery,  turned  toward  his 
host.  "Atticus,"  he  said,  "you  have  convinced 
me  that  I  am  right.  Pedigree,  wealth  and  art, 
nations  and  civilisations  and  the  destiny  of 
men  bring  you  no  happiness.  I  find  myself  at 
peace  in  the  heavens.  While  you  were  speaking 
I  rivalled  Alpheus  here  and  beat  out  an  epigram: 


208  Roads  from  Rome 

That  I  am  mortal  and  a  day  my  span 

I  know  and  own, 
Yet  when  the  circling  ebb  and  flow  I  scan 

Of  stars  thick-strewn, 
No  longer  brush  the  earth  my  feet, 

And  I  abide, 
While  God's  own  food  ambrosial  doth  replete, 

By  Zeus's  side. 

Like  a  gust  of  wind,  the  unexpected  poet  might 
have  swept  the  conversation  into  his  own  ether, 
if  at  this  juncture  the  doors  had  not  opened  to 
admit  a  group  of  well  known  actors.  There  was 
a  general  exclamation  of  surprise,  special  enter- 
tainments being  almost  unknown  at  Atticus's 
dinners.  The  host  turned  smiling  to  his  guests. 
"My  friends,"  he  said,  "I  know  you  share  my 
pride  in  the  rare  event  of  Apuleius's  presence. 
He  is  not  as  accustomed  as  we  are  to  the  grey 
monotone  of  our  own  thoughts.  Shall  he  go 
back  to  Carthage  or  Rome  to  laugh  at  our  village 
banquets?  Ptolemy,  you  know  Menander 
shared  your  regard  for — 

these  majestic  sights — the  common  sun, 
Water  and  clouds,  the  stars  and  fire. 


A  Road  to  Rome  209 

Let  him  take  you  off  now  among  our  country 
folk  out  here  near  Parnes.  We  still  have  the 
human  comedy,  played  out  under  sun  and  stars. 
Love  and  deceit,  troubles  and  rewards  are  as 
ageless  as  the  heavens.  Gentlemen,  this  dis- 
tinguished company  has  consented  to  give  us  to- 
night a  presentation  of  The  Arbitrants  equal  to 
the  famous  one  of  the  last  Dionysia." 

Apuleius's  handsome  face  lit  up  with  gaiety 
and  good  will.  "I  thank  you,  0  wise  host,"  he 
called  out. 

To-day's  my  joy  and  sorrow, 

Who  knows  what  comes  to-morrow? 

Let  us  spend  the  moment  we  have  in  the  merry 
company  of  a  wise  poet." 

The  play  began.  Moods  of  tragedy  were  for- 
gotten. Only  Paulus  found  himself  unable  to 
listen.  His  host's  appeal,  made  apparently  with 
such  ready  emotion,  and  so  easily  forgotten  by 
the  other  men — he  was  the  youngest  of  the  com- 
pany— had  shaken  his  soul  as  a  young  tree  on  a 
mountain  is  shaken  by  the  night  wind.  The 
comedy  went  on,  punctuated  by  applause.  In 


2io  Roads  from  Rome 

his  mind  met  and  struggled  high  desires.  When 
Atticus  had  talked  of  Athens  and  of  Rome  he 
had  remembered  Virgil's  great  defence  of  his 
own  people,  the  weapon  of  all  patriots  after  him : 

Others,  I  well  believe,  shall  mould  the  bronze  to  breathe 
in  softer  form,  from  marble  shall  unveil  the  living  coun- 
tenance, shall  plead  with  greater  eloquence,  and  heaven's 
paths  map  out  with  rod  in  hand  and  tell  the  rising  of  the 
stars.  Upon  the  tablets  of  thy  memory,  O  Roman,  it  is 
laid  to  hold  the  peoples  in  thy  sway.  These  are  thy  arts 
and  shall  be:  To  impose  the  ways  of  peace;  to  spare  the 
vanquished  and  subject  the  proud. 

Now  there  leaped  into  life  within  him  a  realisa- 
tion of  Rome's  incommunicable  greatness.  He 
perceived  at  last  the  nature  of  the  pax  romana, 
that  peace,  compounded  of  power,  which  welded 
the  continents  together,  made  the  seas  into 
serviceable  highways  and  held  all  men  secure 
within  the  barriers  of  law  and  justice.  Was  it 
possible  that  a  nation  which  had  given  birth 
to  a  force  like  this  could  also  bring  forth  in  due 
season  a  love  of  beauty,  a  thirst  for  truth? 
Could  tameless  genius  and  conquering  will, 
could  a  passion  for  ideas  and  a  passion  for  deeds 


A  Road  to  Rome  21 1 

dwell  together  until  side  by  side  men  of  one 
blood  should  add  to  the  glory  of  worldly  power 
the  glory  of  spiritual  conquest,  should  super- 
impose upon  the  beauty  of  just  laws  the  beauty 
of  wrought  bronze  and  woven  language? 

And  if  this  could  be,  what  was  the  duty  of  each 
Roman  whose  pure  desires  lay  with  Poetry  and 
her  sisters?  Paulus  shuddered  as  he  felt  the 
question  tearing  its  way  through  the  peaceful 
plans  he  had  been  making  for  his  life.  He 
remembered  the  story  of  Menander  refusing  to 
leave  the  intellectual  life  of  Athens  for  the 
luxuries  of  Ptolemy's  court.  Must  he,  on  the 
contrary,  for  the  sake  of  an  idea,  renounce  this 
life,  with  its  cherished  poverty  and  philosophy, 
its  peace  and  learned  leisure,  its  freedom  and 
candour  and  regard  for  beauty,  to  go  back  to 
Rome  where,  in  terrifying  coalition,  power  and 
pleasure,  wealth  and  display,  passion  and  bru- 
tality were  forever  crowding  in  upon  the  city's 
honour?  The  irresponsibility  of  the  insignif- 
icant assailed  him.  A  Virgil,  he  supposed,  might 
know  that  his  presence  would  affect  his  country 
for  good  or  evil.  But  what  could  he,  Paulus,  do? 


212  Roads  from  Rome 

In  Rome,  in  Athens,  he  was  one  of  the  little  men. 
Was  he  not,  then,  justified  in  living  his  own  life 
in  the  best  possible  way,  atoning  for  the  meagre- 
ness  of  his  talent  by  the  honourableness  of  his 
quest? 

But  even  as  he  said  this  to  himself  he  remem- 
bered why  Athens  had  achieved  perfection. 
In  the  age  of  Pericles,  geniuses,  like  flawless 
jewels  cut  out  of  a  proper  matrix,  had  been 
fashioned  out  of  a  large  body  of  men,  themselves 
not  gifted,  but  able  to  understand  and  safe- 
guard those  who  were.  He  had  left  Rome  be- 
cause she  was  no  matrix  for  poets  and  artists 
and  thinkers.  Ought  he  now  to  return  to  her 
and  live  and  work  and  die  unknown,  serving  only 
as  one  more  citizen  ready  to  welcome  the  poets 
to  be? 

His  panting  desires  put  up  one  last  defence. 
Was  he  not  narrowing  art  within  the  borders  of 
nationality?  In  the  service  of  beauty  was  there 
either  Greek  or  Roman?  Alas!  Atticus  had 
beaten  that  down  already.  Art  was  no  fungus, 
growing  on  a  rotten  stump  of  national  life. 
Greeks  had  been  artists  only  when  they  had 


A  Road  to  Rome  213 

been  conquerors,  soldiers,  traders,  rulers.  The 
Romans  now  held  the  world.  In  them,  the 
eagle's  brood,  lay  the  hope  of  a  new  birth  of  the 
spirit.  With  a  certain  noble  unreason,  he  dis- 
missed the  idea  that  by  living  in  Athens  he  might 
fight  the  battle  for  Rome.  If  he  was  to  fight  at 
all,  it  was  to  be  where  the  enemy  was  fiercest 
and  the  hope  of  victory  least.  Upon  any  easier 
choice  his  ancestors  within  him  laid  their  iron 
grasp.  His  ears  caught  the  words  of  one  of  the 
actors: 

"Well,  do  not  then  the  gods  look  out  for  us?"  you'll  say. 
To  each  of  us  they  have  allotted  Character 
As  garrison  commander. 

Gathering  his  forces  in  obedience  to  his  garrison 
commander  Paulus  tried  to  decide  to  go  back 
to  Rome.  Greece  called  to  him  insistently. 
Confused  and  exhausted,  he  joined  perfunctorily 
in  the  loud  applause  that  closed  the  comedy,  and 
in  the  speeches  of  gratitude  and  farewell  to  the 
host.  ; 

The  play  had  been  long,  and  the  autumn  night, 
he  found  to  his  surprise,  had  passed.    Emerging 


214  Roads  from  Rome 

from  the  house,  he  breasted  the  dawn.  With 
curious  suddenness  the  sense  of  conflict  left  him. 
The  beauty  of  the  Attic  plain,  born,  unlike  the 
beauty  of  the  Roman  Campagna,  of  light  rather 
than  of  unshed  tears,  had  often  seemed  to  him 
to  quicken  the  perception  of  truth.  Certainly 
the  dullest  eyes  must  see  at  this  hour,  when,  at 
the  behest  of  the  approaching  sun,  outlines  were 
cleared  of  all  that  was  shadowy  and  fanciful, 
and  colours  were  touched  to  buoyant  life.  Greece 
called  to  him,  but  with  what  a  message!  Im- 
aginings, vain  desires,  regrets,  were  swept  away 
from  his  mind,  even  as  the  receding  shadows 
left  bare  the  contours  of  the  mountains.  He 
saw  that  his  concern  was  with  the  battle,  not 
with  its  issue.  In  this  enlightening  hour  he 
understood  that  Rome  would  never  become 
mother  of  the  arts,  until,  in  some  unimagined 
future,  through  transforming  national  experi- 
ences, she  should  be  made  pregnant  with 
ideas  beyond  the  ken  of  his  generation.  Poets 
might  again  be  born  of  her,  but  he  and  his  like 
would  long  since  have  been  lying  among  her 
forgotten  children.  And  yet,  the  life  of  the  fu- 


A  Road  to  Rome  215 

ture,  however  distant,  would  not  be  unaffected 
by  the  obscure  work  and  faith  of  the  present 
age.  He  himself  would  never  see  victory,  but 
the  struggle  was  his  inalienable  heritage.  Re- 
vealed in  light  and  joy  he  knew  his  purpose. 
Down  from  the  crags  of  Parnes,  great  wings 
strong  with  the  morning,  swept  an  eagle — as  if 
homeward — toward  the  western  sea.  With  it, 
like  an  arrow  to  its  goal,  alert  with  the  vigour  of 
dawn,  aflame  with  the  ardour  of  life,  sped  the 
heart  of  the  young  Roman. 


HpHE  following  pages  contain  advertisements  of  a 
few  of  the  Macmillan  books  on  kindred  subjects 


BOOKS  ON  ROMAN  SOCIETY 

Social  Life  at  Rome  in  the  Age  of  Cicero 

BY  W.  WAJUDE  FOWLER 

Cloth,  illustrated,  8vo,  $2.25  net 

A  notable  example  of  the  kind  of  history  that  deals  with  men  rather  than 
with  institutions  and  events  is  "  Social  Life  at  Rome  in  the  Age  of  Cicero," 
by  the  learned  scholar  and  fascinating  writer  W.  Warde  Fowler.  The  book 
was  originally  intended  as  a  companion  to  Professor  Tucker's  "Life  in 
Ancient  Athens";  but_it  grew  beyond  the  limits  of  that  volume  because 
of  the  wealth  of  material  Mr.  Fowler  felt  himself  compelled  to  utilize.  As 
the  author  points  out  in  his  preface,  there  is  no  book  in  the  English  language 
which  supplies  a  picture  of  life  and  manners,  of  education,  morals,  and  re- 
ligion, in  the  intensely  interesting  period  of  the  Roman  Republic.  The  age 
of  Cicero  is  one  of  the  most  important  periods  of  Roman  history,  and  the 
Ciceronian  correspondence,  of  more  than  nine  hundred  contemporary  letters, 
is  the  richest  treasure-house  of  social  life  that  has  survived  from  any  period 
of  classical  antiquity.  

BY  SAMUEL  DILL,  M.A. 

Hon.  Litt.D.,  Dublin;  Hon.  LL.D.,  Edinburgh;  Hon.  Fellow 
and  late  Tutor  C.C.C.,  Oxford;  Professor  of  Greek  in 
Queens  College,  Belfast. 

Roman  Society,  from  Nero  to  Marcus 
Aurelius 

Second  edition,  doth,  8w,  $2.50  net 

"The  most  important  contribution  yet  made  in  English  to  our  knowledge 
of  the  way  in  which  all  classes  of  Roman  society,  including  the  aristocracy, 
the  plebeians,  the  freedman  and  the  slaves,  ordinarily  lived  in  the  rela- 
tively happy  age  of  the  Antonines  is  presented  in  this  admirable  work,  not 
one  of  whose  fifteen  chapters  is  devoid  of  illumination  and  fascination.  .  .  . 
It  should  be  distinctly  understood  that  this  work  is  the  product  of  first- 
hand, not  second-hand,  erudition  and  investigation.  .  .  .  This  book  is 
what  it  purports  to  be,  a  social,  not  a  political  history." — M.  W.  H.  in 
New  York  Sun. 

Roman  Society  in  the  Last  Century  of 
the  Western  Empire 

Second  edition,  cloth,  8w,  $i-75  net 

"  We  want  to  emphasize  the  point  that  this  volume  is  not  a  mere  raking 
over  of  dry  bones,  with  nothing  but  an  antiquarian  interest  for  the  reader 
of  to-day.  It  is  more  vital  to  the  student  of  modern  social,  religious,  and 
political  tendencies  than  a  large  share  of  the  strictly  modem  sociological 
theses,  studies,  and  dissertations  now  issuing  in  such  profusion  from  the  work- 
shops of  the  doctor-making  universities.  And,  aside  from  its  inherent 
importance,  its  thoughts  are  so  lucidly  and  attractively  expressed  that  no 
intelligent  reader,  whether  a  Latinist  or  not,  can  fail  to  find  it  pleasant 
reading." — The  Evening  Post,  New  York. 

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A  New  Illustrated  Work  by  the  Late  John  La  Farge 

The  Gospel  Story  in  Art 

BY  JOHN  LA  FARGE 

Author  of  "  Considerations  on  Painting,"  etc.  Illustrated  with 
80  plates  of  famous  paintings  described  in  the  text. 
Elaborately  bound  in  decorated  cloth,  large  8vo. 

Written  by  Mr.  La  Farge  shortly  before  his  death,  out  of 
his  large  learning  on  all  church  matters  as  well  as  those  of  art, 
this  book  promises  to  be  one  of  the  most  valuable  contributions 
to  a  field  where  for  years  the  author's  word  has  been  pre- 
eminent. A  more  fascinating  subject  or  one  better  calculated 
to  display  the  author's  highly  specialized  talent  would  be  hard 
to  discover.  The  presentation  of  Christianity  as  the  great 
artists  of  all  ages  have  seen  it,  accomplished  by  the  use  of 
illustrations  and  exquisite  descriptions  which  only  Mr.  La 
Farge  could  have  written,  this  is  The  Gospel  Story  in  Art.  All 
those  who  like  beautiful  pictures,  who  find  delight  in  the  study 
of  them,  as  well  as  those  who  reverence  the  story  of  Christian- 
ity, will  be  pleased  with  this  volume,  in  which  both  art  and 
religion  are  looked  at  from  a  slightly  different  viewpoint. 
Special  care  has  been  taken  in  the  reproductions,  which  it  is 
believed  will  satisfy  the  most  critical. 


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Athens  and  Its  Monuments 

BY  CHARLES  HEALD  WELLER  of  the  University  of  Iowa. 
Profusely  illustrated  with  both  half  tones  and  line  cuts 

Decorated  cloth,  8w. 

The  interest  of  Athens  is  perennial  and  the  progress  of 
research  is  constantly  enlarging  our  knowledge.  This  book 
embodies  the  results  of  many  years  of  study  and  of  different 
periods  of  residence  in  Athens.  It  presents  in  concise  and 
readable  form  a  description  of  the  ancient  city  in  the  light  of 
the  most  recent  investigation.  It  will  enable  the  reader  to  ob- 
tain a  bird's-eye  view  of  the  most  important  sites  and  build- 
ings known  from  the  remains  or  from  the  Greek  literature. 
It  treats  briefly,  first  of  the  situation  and  development  of 
Athens,  then  in  more  detail  of  the  walls  and  gates,  the  Agora, 
the  Acropolis,  the  Areopagus,  the  courts,  the  cemeteries,  the 
academy,  the  Pirajus  and  the  ports.  The  volume  is  richly 
illustrated.  It  is  published  as  one  of  the  Handbooks  of  Ar- 
chaology  and  Antiquities. 


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The  Message  of  Greek  Art 

BY  H.  H.  POWERS,  PH.D. 
Decorated  cloth,  illustrated,  i2mo,  $2.00  net;  postpaid  $2.20 

This  is  not  a  history  of  Greek  Art.  Still  less  is  it  a  record 
of  personal  research  or  exploration  beyond  the  limits  of  pre- 
vious knowledge.  The  writer  is  deeply  conscious  of  the  debt 
which  he  and  others  owe  to  the  patient  scholarship  which 
has  rescued  from  oblivion  so  much  that  he  values,  but  he 
claims  no  part  in  the  honor  of  this  achievement.  He  has 
found  in  the  civilization  thus  rescued  a  thing  inspiring  and 
enjoyable  beyond  any  other.  While  sharing  with  scholars 
the  regret  that  so  much  still  remains  unknown,  he  has  even 
greater  regret  that  the  known  is  so  inaccessible,  that  so  few 
enjoy  what  he  has  found  enjoyable  or  feel  the  inspiration 
which  he  has  felt.  This  regret  is  the  occasion  of  this  book, 
and  sufficiently  suggests  its  purpose. 

As  the  title  of  the  book  implies,  the  subject  here  chiefly 
discussed  is  Greek  Art,  but  with  emphasis  rather  upon  the 
adjective  than  upon  the  noun.  The  subject  is  never  disso- 
ciated in  thought  from  its  great  background  of  Greek  civiliza- 
tion and  history,  and  it  derives  its  chief  interest  to  the  writer 
from  the  fact  that  it  so  constantly  reveals  and  interprets 
this  larger  fact.  It  is  therefore  the  message  of  Greek  Art, 
what  it  has  to  tell  us  of  the  Greeks,  of  their  personality,  their 
ideals  and  their  experiences,  that  will  chiefly  concern  us, 
rather  than  considerations  of  process  or  later  accident. 

— From  the  Author's  Introduction. 

MORE  THAN  150  ILLUSTRATIONS 


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Mornings  with  Masters  of  Art 

NEW  EDITION 
BY  H.  H.  POWERS 
Cloth,  i2mo,  illustrated,  $2.00  net;  postpaid  $2.20 

"The  result  of  his  daily  contact  with  the  greatest  works 
of  modern  artists  is  to  give  his  book  a  certain  freshness  and 
originality  that  is  not  found  in  the  work  of  those  who  deliber- 
ately prepare  for  the  writing  of  a  book.  The  author  takes 
up  all  the  great  Italian  painters,  but  his  discussions  of  Bot- 
ticelli, Donatello,  Leonardo,  Raphael,  and  Michelangelo  are 
especially  full  and  satisfying.  He  is  one  of  those  who  can 
see  little  in  'The  Last  Judgment,'  although  his  appreciation 
of  the  work  on  the  vaulted  ceiling  of  the  Sistine  Chapel  is  the 
best  that  we  have  ever  seen.  The  book  is  elaborately  illus- 
trated from  photographs,  many  of  which  are  not  common." 

— San  Francisco  Chronicle. 

"That  the  author  is  a  scholar  and  a  connoisseur  of  distinc- 
tion in  Italian  art  appears  very  clearly  from  his  work,  which, 
let  us  add,  is  quite  free  from  dry-as-dust  pedantry  and  cannot 
but  prove  of  interest  to  any  reader  not  utterly  devoid  of  any- 
thing like  love  of  art." — Chicago  Inter-Ocean. 

"Mr.  Powers'  work  is  of  value  to  persons  seriously  interested 
in  art,  and  particularly  worth  while  to  those  who  prize  most 
in  art  its  spiritual  values."  — Boston  Advertiser. 

"Mr.  Powers  has  produced  one  of  the  most  stimulating 
books  that  have  been  written  on  this  important  subject. 
His  style  is  lucid  and  his  thought  is  free  and  individual." 

— Philadelphia  Public  Ledger. 


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The  Principles  of  Greek  Art 

By  PERCY  GARDNER,  Litt.  D.,  Lincoln  and  Merton  Professor 
of  Classical  Archaeology  in  the  University  of  Oxford 

Illustrated.    Cloth,  I2mo. 

This  book  is  a  reworking  on  a  large  scale  of  the  author's 
Grammar  of  Greek  Art.  It  is  an  attempt  to  make  clear  the 
artistic  and  pyschological  principles  incorporated  in  Greek 
art,  especially  in  sculpture,  which  is  treated  as  a  character- 
istic product  of  the  Greek  spirit,  a  parallel  to  Greek  literature 
and  religion.  Professor  Gardner  writes  as  one  who  feels 
keenly  the  debt  which  modern  civilization  owes  to  Greece 
and  who  realizes  the  great  danger  of  a  lapse  to  a  lower  plane 
of  civilization  if  Greek  studies  fall  out  of  the  educational  cur- 
riculum. The  work  not  only  sets  forth  the  principles  but  con- 
tains chapters  dealing  with  all  the  more  important  phases 
and  products  of  Greek  art,  made  clearer  by  the  use  of  more 
than  one  hundred  carefully  chosen  illustrations.  While  there 
are  many  handbooks  to  Greek  archaeology  none  of  them  are 
written  along  these  lines. 


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17483 


from  which  it  was  borrowed 


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